Nongshim (Nongshim Co., Ltd. www.nongshim.com) started to take advantage of each country’s distribution channels in order to target the Southeast Asian market.
Above all, Nongshim will hold sales promotion events mainly at each country’s largest stores in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In those events, Nongshim will progress free sampling events at the same time so that it may maximize the sales of products and the repurchase rate.
Moreover, Nongshim will strengthen its strategy of targeting distribution channels like convenient stores, which means that it will speed up targeting local markets including supermarkets and convenient stores rather than large stores unlike its past approach.
In the countries where its distribution channels are relatively less developed such as Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Nongshim has a plan to target local medium-sized discount stores and private retailers since they are spread across the country based on the conventional large stores. In other words, it is a plan for Nongshim to target local cities all around, expand the scope of supply and increase its sales of products across the nation.
In addition, Nongshim is planning to target traditional markets which account for the majority of distribution channels – 70 percent in Vietnam, 50 percent in the Philippines and 35 percent in Thailand. Given that traditional markets usually treat most of the cheapest items in their country, Nongshim will slowly permeate into them with its brand power of Shin Ramyun, popular instant noodles for foreign tourists.
Along with this, Nongshim is trying to target the Halal market, the Shariah(Islamic law) compliant products and services like Malaysia and Indonesia. In particular, Nongshim extended the scope for the Halal certification including Kimchi ramyun and Chaesikju-ui Sun Ramyeon, Soon vegetarian instant noodles last December to expand the Halal market.
Also, Nongshim will embrace Australia to its footholds in the Asian market and put an effort to increase the revenue. Nongshim which established its affiliate in Sydney to advance into the Australian market last January is going to march into Brisbane, northern part of Sydney and Melbourne, its southern part this year.
By Kim Min-ji
