China: Key Cigarette Factory Plans to Greatly Develop Competitive Brand

Source from:  Xinhua News Agency 08/20/2004

Guiyang Cigarette Factory in southwest China's Guizhou Province, which is one of the 36 key Chinese tobacco manufacturers designated by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), is planning to give priority to the development of its longtime highly competitive Huangguoshu (The Orange Tree) brand. [img border=0 hspace="4" vspace="4" align="left" src=http://www.tobaccochina.com/english/picture/2001hgs.jpg] In a recent interview with the official Xinhua News Agency, Deputy Director Liu Zhongxiang of Guiyang Cigarette Factory said that over the next few years, Guiyang Cigarette Factory will take a series of steps, including promotion of the image of the brand, to greatly develop Huangguoshu. The sales volume of Huangguoshu brand cigarettes reached 512,800 cases (25.64 billion cigarettes) in 2003, accounting for over 60 percent of Guiyang Cigarette Factory's overall cigarette sales volume in the year, and up 29.44 percent year-on-year. Besides, among all the famous, high-quality cigarette brands in China, Huangguoshu registered the fourth largest sales volume in the same year, coming only after Baisha of Hunan Province, and Honghe and Hongmei of Yunnan Province. As far as all the cigarette brands of the 36 key Chinese tobacco manufacturers are concerned, Huangguoshu ranked the ninth in 2003 in terms of the annual increase in profits. According to Liu, Guiyang Cigarette Factory plans to increase the annual output and sales volume of Huangguoshu to over 1 million cases (over 50 billion cigarettes) by the end of 2006, with Grade One Huangguoshu brand cigarettes to account for 7 percent of its total annual cigarette output and sales volume, Grade Two 10 percent, Grade Three 45 percent, Grade Four 25 percent and Grade Five 8 percent or higher. By then, Huangguoshu will have become a representative brand of Chinese-style cigarettes, Liu said. To realize this grand target, besides promoting the image of Huangguoshu to further improve its reputation at the marketplace, Guiyang Cigarette Factory will also focus its energy on strengthening the analysis of contents of cigarette smoke of Huangguoshu, and improving its blending formula and the technologies for adding aromas and flavorings as well as other auxiliary materials in its manufacturing, in an effort to increase the technological content of Huangguoshu. Meanwhile, Guiyang Cigarette Factory will manage to raise its economic efficiency by developing brands and markets, increasing market shares, reforming the structure of products and controlling the cost of production. Enditem