BabyTree and Tokyo MX Announce Strategic Collaboration to Bridge Japan's Ingenuity Brands and China's New Family Consumption Demands

BEIJING, Dec. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On 16 December 2019, BabyTree Group ("Babytree" or the "Company"; stock code: 1761.HK), China's leading online service platform for young families, announced strategic cooperation with Tokyo MX in Tokyo, Japan. The two sides have the intention to form a joint venture in Japan, sourcing Japan's quality consumer goods for moms and families in China. With companies in the industry chain of consumer goods in both China and Japan, BabyTree is set to build a new eco-system for cross-border consumption for Chinese families.

The press conference attracted more than 200 representatives from top brands, media outlets and the marketing, financial and media industries, such as Pigeon, Unicharm, Mikimoto, Yamano, Koudannsha, Asashi Television, Denstu, Hakuhodo, Mizuho and Taobao's live broadcast in Japan. They shared insights and trends of the two countries' consumer markets, providing favorable opportunities for promoting cultural exchanges on consumption and mutual business development.

The emerging of new forces in China's family consumption promotes the upgrade of cross-border consumption services

Since China is currently embracing a new consumption era, the younger generation born in the 90s and 95s being the new force of online family consumption, which is accompanied by the internet information technology developing rapidly, the demand for quality consumption and ideal lifestyle for young families in China is constantly upgrading. As an internet platform connecting and serving China's young families for more than 12 years, Babytree provides one-stop integrated services for young parents based on its two pillars of strong social features and premium contents.

"Moms in China deeply trust and depend on Babytree to help them with solving problems during pregnancy and making wise family consumption decisions." Lou Lili, President of Babytree, said at the press conference: "guided by our mission, we go abroad and bring back the best quality products and services for our family users in China, the maternal and infant consumers in particular. Babytree looks forward to cooperating with various brands from Japan to expand the consumption market in China and jointly upgrade its cross-border consumption services, benefiting more consumers from such communication and cooperation and empowering young families to enjoy the beautiful journey of life.

Japanese consumer good manufacturing is always striving "people-oriented" flawless product details and ultimate user experiences, which results in the continuity of its craftsman spirit and culture, setting examples with its product quality and craft in the global manufacturing industry. In particular, its FMCG established excellent reputation and been embraced by consumers in the world includes China market. According to data from CBNData, Japan is the most-loved place for imported products for the post-90s and 95s consumer groups in China.

Hiroshi Date, President of Tokyo MX, stated at the conference, "As a long-standing Japanese TV broadcaster established for 24 years, Tokyo MX has profound insights and influence on family consumption in Japan since it covers 14.5 million family viewers in total." According to Hiroshi, The cooperation between the two parties will enable bridging young mother consumers in both China and Japan through quality products, and strengthen the friendship of people from the two nations, by leveraging the strong content production ability and a wide range of brand resources of Tokyo MX and the market appeal and channel advantages of Babytree in China's maternal & infant market.

Open through the channels of cross-border consumption, Babytree dedicates to link ingenuity goods seamlessly with young families.

After the official launch of the cooperation, Liu Shihong, Vice-president and General Manager of e-commerce business of Babytree, further revealed how Babytree will seamlessly linking Japanese high-quality consumer brands and young Chinese families.

"Now, China has become the world's leading e-commerce consumer market. The mature e-commerce service system and user traffic diversification position set a higher barrier for international brands to enter the Chinese market. Besides, the geographical distance and cultural language differences have also kept Japanese moms' favorite top-notch goods unknown to the Chinese. However, Babytree's tentacles, which could help Japanese brands and products reach the Chinese consumer market, are our two core strengths – content and social services." Liu Shihong said.

"On the one hand, Japanese products will enter the high-traffic and active communities of Babytree, where tens of millions of young mothers will try out and review products and make group purchases, which will then trigger extensive discussions and recommendation. Big data insight deriving from users' true opinions of these products will further help brands to quickly understand users' acceptance of products, and even, this is a process of users' reverse selection, helping us distinguish whether the product is good enough to impress Chinese moms."

Liu Shihong introduced, "Babytree, on the other hand, will jointly develop professional interesting IP content with Tokyo MX, combining the concepts, usage and functions of high-quality commodities with the current pan-entertainment visual content most popular among young Chinese families. Apart from that, with open distribution within the Babytree's own platform, as well as Tmall, Tik Tok, Toutiao and other external traffic ecosystems, the brand and products will be more easily recognised and favored by users."

Moreover, live video, as the currently leading new promotion e-commerce channel for imported products, have a significant effect on the attracting young Chinese consumers. Live online shopping is especially suitable for maternal and child consumer goods, as moms tend to reference professional guidance in areas such as milk powder brewing and nappy replacement.

According to Liu Shihong, after several rounds of strict selection and user education, the products will enter the e-commerce platform of Babytree, and make consumers more intuitive and quicker to understand the products and purchases by means of live videos hosted both by KOLs and in-site of online store. In the future, Babytree will also customize SKUs for young Chinese family consumers to promote sales across the whole network. For brands with abundant product lines and mature consumption trend cycles, Babytree will empower them to omni-channel coverage in China.

Since 2015, Babytree has started providing professional maternal and infant e-commerce services and has mature practical experience in the whole cross-border e-commerce chain. In 2018, the company reached a strategic cooperation deal with Alibaba on e-commerce to further upgrade its household consumption services and has since been leading the trend of maternal and infant consumption with open and shared platform strategies. Babytree's strategic cooperation with Tokyo MX shows the determination of Babytree to meet the needs of young Chinese families for a quality life through continuous business innovation and upgrade the young family consumption industry.

SOURCE BabyTree