CJ CheilJedang Corp
KRX:097950
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CJ CheilJedang Corp
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Ladies and gentlemen, I am Seong Jun, Head of IR team and Finance Strategy. We will now begin the Q4 2023 business results report for CJ Cheiljedang.
Today's session will be interpreted simultaneously into English for foreign investors.
Let me first introduce the CJ team. We have Mr. Kang Kyoung Suk, CFO and Head of Finance Strategy; Mr. [indiscernible], Head of Food Korea Business Management; Mr. [indiscernible], Head of Food Business Management; Mr. Kim Jang Young, Head of Biobusiness Management; Mr. Choi Jung Ha at FNT and Mr. Hwang Hyun Joo, Head of Feed & Care Business Management.
Mr. Kang will first walk you through the business results followed by progress on key strategy execution and outlook by respective presenters. We will then move on to Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am Kang Kyoung Suk, CFO of CJ Cheiljedang. Today's agenda includes Q4 highlights, earnings analysis by business unit, key indicator analysis and progress on key strategy execution followed by outlook.
Let's flip to Page 5. First, the corporate operating profit, excluding CJ Logistics turned to an increase in 5 quarters. In Q4, OP grew by over 28% year-over-year with OP increased year-over-year for 2 consecutive quarters. 4 products in the U.S. strengthened their market leadership and share. Furthermore, the company continued expansion in Europe and Australia. In Bio, thanks to the continued growth of Tryptophan and Specialty Amino Acid, the amino acid business showed growth in OP. In FNT, backed by sales increase of nucleotide and cost improvement based on competitiveness, OP increased in Q4.
Lastly, thanks to the efforts to maintain financial soundness, the net debt recorded KRW 5.7 trillion lower than the end of last year.
Moving on to the next page. Let's now look at Q4 corporate results, excluding CJ Logistics. For sales high base last year in Bio and FNT, an unfavorable business environment in FNT resulted in KRW 4.3857 trillion. OP stood at KRW 157.9 billion, thanks to SG&A reduction in food and profit increase of amino acid in Bio. Net profit amounted to KRW 96.9 billion as a result of OP increase and deferred tax credit.
In the next page, including CJ Logistics, sales declined 3.7% to KRW 7.2894 trillion, while OP increased 24% to KRW 298.3 billion in Q4.
Next, to Page 9. Let's look at performance by business unit. First of food. In Food, there is increase of core products in Korea and U.S. and streamlined SG&A contributing to profitability improvements. Sales declined 2% year-over-year. For Korea gift sets burden due to the different Lunar New Year holiday date from last year and lower demand for food ingredients were offset partly by sales recovery of processed food recording KRW 1.38 trillion.
Next is overseas. China and Japan saw sales drop due to focus on profitability improvements and weak currency. While U.S. continued on market share growth and solidified #1 position of Mandu and Pizza and Europe and Australia boosted bibigo sales in mainstream resulting in the overseas sales of KRW 1.3867 trillion.
For OP, thanks to sales increase of key products such as Hetbahn and Mandu, SG&A improvement and sales growth in U.S., Europe and Australia, we recorded KRW 143.8 billion year-over-year growth of 87%.
If you go on to the next page, OP margin in Q4 was 5.4%, excluding Schwan's PPA, and 5.2% when including the PPA.
Next is more details on food sales in Korea. Based on differentiated technology, we secured market competitiveness with rapid growth of new products and effective strategy execution by respective channels. For processed food, we boosted sales by reinforcing the strategic platform through next-day delivery in DTC in addition to differentiating new products. For food Ingredients, the sales of cooking oil declined amid persistent base effect, while that of sugar and flour increased.
Next, more details on overseas sales. In U.S., Mandu and Pizza solidified their market leadership in share and the sales volume of K food increased. As a result, sales grew 4% with quarterly sales standing at KRW 1.175 trillion. In Asia Pacific and Europe, despite continuously slow demand recovery in China and Japan, expansion in new markets has been successfully implemented in Europe and Australia.
Next is Bio and FNT. High-margin products such as Tryptophan and Specialty Amino Acid maintained double-digit growth in Bio. However, sales of bulky amino acid slowed down due to the last year's high base and focus on high-margin products and the prices of selective key products went down due to the downturn in the processed food market. All in all, the sales stood at KRW 877.5 billion, 10% down year-over-year. OP was KRW 6.1 billion, 82% dropped year-over-year.
Profit from amino-acid product grew, thanks to technology marketing and sales increase of high-margin products, but the profit in general went down due to slowdown in Selecta. Excluding Selecta, Bio's OP increased by KRW 27.5 billion. FNT was affected by pressure from high base from last year and prolonged economic slowdown in China, but TasteNrich sales rebounded since Q1. Sales declined 5% year-over-year to KRW 160.7 billion.
OP increased 12% year-over-year to KRW 50.7 billion. FNT was able to maintain market leadership in share of nucleotide, secure new customers in rapidly growing markets such as India and Halal market and streamline manufacturing costs leveraging tech competitiveness, leading to year-over-year profit growth. On the next page, share of specialty products has been on the rise, currently standing at 19% as of Q4 2023.
Next one is Feed and Care. For F&C sales declined due to the decrease of feed sales volume in Indonesia and core price drop in Vietnam. Economic slowdown resulted in less spending, exacerbating profitability of Indonesian Feed and Vietnamese pork. Sales dropped 23% year-over-year to KRW 580.8 billion. OP recorded minus KRW 42.6 billion. For Feed, demand for high-end feed shrunk to undermining product missing portfolio and pushing up the fixed costs, hence, the lower margin.
For Livestock, cost pressure was mitigated by a little in Vietnam. But due to low demand and rising import, pork prices went down along with profitability. Chicken prices increased year-over-year in Indonesia. However, as the Indonesian government skipped the announcement of chicken supply control policy, DOC prices sharply dropped, resulting in our margin at a similar level to the previous year.
On Page 17, performance of CJ Logistics. Thanks to its business competitiveness, the number of new orders increased leading to sales growth. Profit showed rapid growth enabled by tech-driven productivity improvement and profitability enhancement. Sales in Q4 rose 1% year-over-year to KRW 3.0606 trillion, and OP grew 28% year-over-year to KRW 144 billion.
On Page 20, you can see SG&A and nonoperating income and expenses excluding CJ Logistics, where SG&A labor costs declined by KRW 45.4 billion and transportation cost by KRW 27 billion. SG&A to sales ratio decreased 1.7 percentage points year-over-year. Nonoperating expenses stood at KRW 95.2 billion, KRW 57.5 billion up from Q4 2022.
When including CJ Logistics, SG&A and nonoperating income and expenses are largely affected by CJCJ performance, so I'll skip the details.
Next is update on key strategies and outlook. First is Korean Food business update. Volume growth for Korean Food business continues, led by processed food growth at CJCJ executes channel-specific strategy and launches new products in line with food trend.
When the breakdown by channel, CVS' 2023 sales increased by 9% through expanding strategy collaboration with distributors. B2B sales increased by 12%, thanks to military and flight catering expansion and processed meat business growth.
Next is Online. Sales for online business was turned around in the fourth quarter, thanks to growth of CJ the market, CJ the DTC mall, which surfaced 10 billion monthly sales, along with diversification of strategic collaboration platforms, such as [indiscernible] market.
Next is new product purpose overview. CJCJ launched new products based on proactive trend catching and differentiated R&D, marketing and manufacturing competency showing high growth in the market. If you look at sales growth for 2023, chicken grew by 141%. Thanks to successful launch of Sobaba. PlanTable grew by 68%, white meat 51% and Sotbahn 26%. What is notable here is explosive growth of Sobaba chicken, which recorded YTD 30 billion sales since the launch in March until the end of last year.
Our another new product, Whole Shrimp Mandu launched last December also made a good start expected to build a strong presence in the market as well. Thanks to these ongoing trends of each channel and new products, volume for Korean Food business is rebounding since September 2023. In addition to that, since the first half of 2024, we forecast continued volume increase as year-over-year base burden eases.
Let's go on to overseas food business update. Global sales for food is forecasted to continue growth as our key products such as Pizza, Mandu are consolidating #1 position in the U.S. market, along with GSP sales expansion based on chicken, K-sauce, P-Rice, effort of K-Street food and global territory expansion in Europe and Australia. For Pizza market share at Grocery channels, Red Baron is widening its gap against the second player, recording 20.5% in shares.
Share for bibigo Mandu is 42.1% for the fourth quarter, continuing high growth in the market. In Europe and Australia, by product and category, not only Mandu but products like chicken, K-sauce, P-Rice showed rapid growth and we established product portfolio for K-Street Food including Tteokbokki, Corn dog, Frozen Gimbap, Bung O Pang, and Frozen Tteokbokki. Considering export takes 50% of our GSP sales, 21% of export share implicates our K-Street food products have high growth potential in the global market.
In Europe and Oceania, we are seeing significant growth. Sales growth rate, combining Europe and Australia recorded 40% in 2022 and 38% in 2023, surpassing KRW 100 billion in total sales, thanks to sales expansion in ethnic and mainstream channels and new distribution growth.
Next is OP margin and amino acid business overview for CJ Bio. Bio's OP margin rebounded since 2023 -- first quarter of 2023, thanks to continued growth of Tryptophan and Specialty Amino Acid such as Valine, Arginine, Isoleucine and Histidine. Sales growth rate of Tryptophan 40% last year and 35% for specialty amino acids. These products will continue to be the key growth driver for bio amino acid business in 2024 as well. Amid mixed signals coming from the market from ESG perspective, such as production increase of soybean meal while meat production rebounced, we forecast continued growth for Tryptophan and Specialty AA along with continued penetration growth.
Next is amino acid overview by item. Lysine is forecasted to show weak growth due to severe competition in some regions, including China, even though meat production is expected to grow gradually. CJCJ will continue differentiation with high-margin formats such as liquid Lysine in China and other markets, maintaining volume by expanding flexible production of specialty AA using Lysine production lines.
Demand for tryptophan will continue to grow, thanks to increased volatility of grain price and growing shares of systemized enterprises amid ongoing trend of reducing crude protein usage.
For specialty amino acid, we forecast gradual increase of penetration rate in the chicken market in line with growing demand of crude protein reduction and penetration rate increase through tech marketing. Demand will continue to increase for BCAA balanced solutions such as Valine and Isoleucine.
BCAA refers to branched chain amino acid, which includes Valine, Leucine and Isoleucine. These amino acids have huge impact on muscle metabolism and physical activities. For example, as more usage of corn-based feeds led to high Leucine consumption for livestock, demand for Isoleucine and Valine are on the rise.
Next is update on sustainability initiatives. CJCJ got external recognition for its diverse ESG activities in 2023. For example, CJCJ got AA grade from MSCI ESG valuation for 2 consecutive years and that A grades from Korean Institute of Corporate Governance and Sustainability for 7 consecutive years. In addition, CJCJ was listed to DJSI Asia-Pacific Index for 9 consecutive years and also listed for FTSE4GOOD under London Stock Exchange for 4 consecutive years.
In addition, SUSTINVEST in Korea raised its rating of CJCJ to A grade. In addition to that, Hetbahn was awarded as the best practice at carbon neutrality best case contest, held by Korea Consumer Agency and received Maslahat Award from Pasuruan government in Indonesia. CJCJ is building a good presence as a leading ESG company by getting recognition from several external agencies, including the listing to 2024 LEAD Group selected by UNGC network Korea under UN.
Moreover, CJCJ is actively practicing ESG value through sustainable products. CJCJ launched upcycled food product Excycle Basak Chips in Korea first in April 2023 and then launched in the U.S., Malaysia and Hong Kong, targeting global Better-For-You snack market, focusing on eco-friendly, high-protein and high-fiber features.
Also, CJCJ is the first company in the world, which developed microwave safe coated paper with PHA. So technology enhances the durability and heat resistance of traditional compostable coated paper making it comparable to petrochemical coatings by polypropylene and polyethylene.
This compostable coated paper could be applied not only to paper cups, but also to packaging that requires pouring hot water like cup noodles and microwaveable rice containers made of paper. Planning to expand its application to various other paper food packaging materials.
Next is 2024 key strategy by business. CJCJ will optimize the business structure and nurture future drivers in order to respond to rapidly changing business environment. We will execute strategy by business to secure so-called only one competency or outstanding competency.
First is innovative growth through optimized portfolio operation by channel, such as online B2B and CVS. At the same time, we will continue scaling bibigo, Gourmet, Hetbahn, Beksul businesses, establishing unrivaled leadership in the market. CJCJ will enter new categories such as care food, new protein and baked goods, while focusing on our new product growth, including Sobaba, whole shrimp mandu, K-Street foods and chicken breast Spam.
Moreover, we will build competency based on total cost management by building virtuous cycle of cost innovation, along with strategic resource operation and SKU streamlining. Global foods business will focus on increasing sales of core products, GSP channel and KSF Korean Street Food category extension and new territory expansion to adjacent markets such as Canada.
In China, CJCJ plans to establish stable profit structure through expanding to Tier 2 and 3 cities. Mandu sales increased through differentiated pipeline, new category expansions such as Pasta and optimization of category channel mix.
In Japan, we will improve profits of Micho to SKU streamlining and small drink RTD portfolio building to increase profitability of Micho, and we are going to enact Mandu portfolio for distribution growth. Moreover, we are going to grow GSP and Frozen Gimbap distribution.
For Europe, we are increasing distribution and mainstream channel and we are also increasing ACV of ethnic channel. For France and Northern Europe we are entering new regions while raising brand awareness using social media. For Vietnam, we are growing C2C business, while enhancing local partnerships for mainstream and B2B channel expansion.
Bio will expand the customer base, usage and lifestyle variety of high-profit products such as Tryptophan and Specialty Amino acid through tech marketing, such as CP reduction, stress easing, BCAA balance gauging solution. Also, we will consolidate stable supply based on diversified business sites, maximizing profits by enhancing flexible production competency. As bulky amino acid face with severe competition, we are going to enhance performance by focusing on high profit format.
For food ingredients, we will search sugar alternatives based on manufacturing and purchasing competencies to minimize the burden caused by raw sugar price hike. FNT, we will secure demand by expanding into new regions other than China to hatch the uncertainty of Chinese macro economy and continue to secure a so-called outstanding competency based on innovative process and tech marketing.
For TasteNrich, we will leverage the momentum of demand recovery since second half of last year to secure new customers and expand the application of our solutions.
For Nutrition, we will kickstart specialty business by expanding new customer base for core market of sports nutrition and focus on growing health functional categories. For FNT, we will optimize our business model by establishing stable profit structure, restructuring slumping business regions, expanding shares of downstream value chain with high value, such as livestock processing and distribution to ease the volatility caused by livestock market trend.
Next is Korea Food business outlook. Sales for Korea Food is forecasted to turn around as year-over-year base burden eases along with the rise of processed food consumption. CJCJ is building stronger partnership with off-line retailers focusing on online DTC, strategic platform partnership and launching new products in line with food trends.
Though foreign exchange rate and raw sugar price pressures perceived, these are expected to be offset by stable grain and food raw material prices. We expect margin to improve year-over-year with tighter management of SG&A.
Let's go on to overseas food business update. As our key products gain stronger presence in the market, we forecast stronger performance, including volume growth of Pizza and Mandu, category expansion for raw Kimchi and seaweed, cost stabilization and SG&A management.
In Japan, we forecast turnaround as sales of Micho is rebounding, coupled with the growth of GSP and K-Street Food. In China, even though macroeconomic environment is not favorable to our business, we still forecast gradual growth, thanks to channel redirection and restructuring for stronger profit structure, strategic offline channel expansion and new product launch.
For BIO, we will focus on profitability for bulky amino acid and performance, excluding Selecta is forecasted to grow, thanks to continued growth of tryptophan and specialty amino acid. Next is FNT. FNT's performance is forecasted to grow year-over-year, thanks to continued good performance of nucleotide and reduced inventory of existing customers and new customer expansion for TasteNrich coupled with rising demand for nutrition downstream.
For Feed & Care, we expect stronger performance as the market trend will gradually rebound in key regions coupled with our efforts to transform business structure, focusing on profit, expanding processing distribution value chain. All in all, 2024 corporate sales is forecasted to grow by mid-single-digit percent and OP margin around 5% to 6%. That is all we have prepared for today. We will now begin our Q&A session.
One announcement before we go on. Simultaneous interpretation will provided for Korean questions, but questions in English will be consecutively translated. Please speak slowly for the interpreters.
[Operator Instructions] The first person who is going to ask question is from Meritz, Kim Jung Wook.
I have 3 questions. First, about the United States. Recently, the U.S. frozen product demand has been low -- slow and the frozen business has been slow. So what is your outlook on the overall frozen food business and food business in 2024 in the U.S. And also, what are your outlook about the core products and the new launches of K-Street Food. So how are they going to contribute to the overall performance?
And the next question is about Korea. And I believe the trend is quite diversified in Korea, and that is why you are thinking about expanding Care Food and bakery, but if the SKU, the number of SKUs keeps going up, then it is going to be burdened for your portfolio management and also I saw that the profit has been improved. What is your plan on the labor costs and A&P costs and is going to continue in 2024? And also, are you going to continue on the profitability improvement activities?
And also, the next question is what is the improvement of the slow businesses? And what are your time lines and also the volatility of the performance was quite big in 2023. And I would like to know if it is going to be mitigated in 2024.
Well, thank you for your question. Let me briefly walk you through about the U.S. products and outlook in 2024 by each product and channel. In Q4 2023 and compared to Q4 2022, the price increase has not been effective and there has been low impact of pricing. However, we were able to increase sales volume. So the total sales based on dollar, it was 8% growth. In Q4, because it was a peak season of bibigo products, and there were global campaigns that we launched and that led to a positive impact. So not only in Pizza but also Mandu saw market share solidification, so we capped the market leadership in market share.
For the profitability, yes, we are able to increase the sales and able to improve the profitability in Q4 2023. In 2024, it is going to be similar to Q4 2023. The pricing, considering the U.S. economy and election and the other business environmental factors, I believe the pricing is going to be limited to a certain extent. But for Pizza and Mandu and the core products such as GSPs, then we are going to expand the sales continuously. And also other than Mandu, we have K-Street Food, another K-food that we are going to focus on. So based on dollar amounts, we are going to show high single-digit growth in the U.S. and OP margin also is going to be improved. So that's our outlook.
And you also gave us the question about the market outlook. Well, as far as we know, the frozen food market is not in good shape in the U.S. And of course, it differs by category but we still also have to think about the difference between the food service and frozen food market. But as far as we know, the frozen food market in the U.S., in general, has been going down last year. And yes, of course, we increased the prices. But accordingly, there was some demand reduction that led to the overall market slowdown. However, in case of our company, we outperformed in the market. That's our evaluation. And this is based on our market leadership in the U.S. market in Pizza and Mandu categories.
In 2024, based on our market outlook and industry outlook and based on our retrospect to the past history, the demand is going to -- we are expecting the demand recovery depending on the pricing action, but it is not coming off on the track as soon as we expected, but I believe that it is going to be recovered compared to last year. And on top of that, we have higher market leadership market position and also we have expanded categories in the U.S. And also, we expanded the channel and regions in the U.S. market as well. So we are going to continue outperforming in the U.S. market.
About SKU and portfolio management for food. Let me answer your question. Because the Food business is scaling up in the Korean market. So the business itself is getting more and more complex. And because we are now more focused on profitability compared to last year -- compared to previous year, we reduced 8% of the SKUs that we have and also, we are managing our portfolio based on the profitability evaluation, and this is going to be maintained in 2024. And the new categories that we are entering newly such as Care Food and bakery, these are the growth engines for the future. And we are going to cater to the market changes and demand changes and we are going to set up a supply chain with agility to cater to different consumer behavior.
And next is profitability. Yes, so based on the management, we have improved the SG&A. But Q4 only, labor costs -- well, actually, we were not -- meeting the target of labor cost has deferred compared to previous year in 2023, and the incentive was decreased last year and also the transportation cost decreased because the ocean freight cost has been stabilized. A&P, Advertising & Promotion costs also went down, and this is due to the base effect compared to the Q4 2022.
Well, in 2024, we are going to discipline the SG&A continuously. But I cannot guarantee that we are going to meet the target as high as Q4 2023. The margin improvement for 2024 is going to be contributed by the raw material cost stabilization, including raw sugar. And also, we are going to continue on cutting down the purchasing cost and manufacturing costs. In addition to that, since the last half -- second half, the quantitative recovery is going to show. So we are expecting overall margin improvement.
Next is about FNT slow business. So in the past, we were more focused on the volume, but now we are changing our structure with more focus on emphasis on profitability. So we have high profitability issues to focus more on Indonesia, such as aqua and also we are going to cut down the fixed cost based on the labor cost reduction. And also in Q4 2023, the manufacturing cost of livestock was the highest. It was all-time high. And the raw material costs are going down in Q1 and also in Q1 and Q2, the supply is going down. And actually, if the demand is recovered in Q1 and Q2, then I believe that we are going to see further improvement in Q1 and Q2 of profitability compared to Q4. And moving on to next question.
There is no person in line for a question. [Operator Instructions] Next is Park Sang-Jun from Kiwoom Securities.
I have 2 questions for today. First is when we look at OP margin for Food business, when we look at U.S. business, it's higher than 9% annually, but other than the U.S., for other global sites things are different. And when we look at OPM for Korea, it's slightly lower than last year.
So for 2023, could you explain how it was recovered and when food material prices become -- recovered, do you think what -- how much OPM do you expect that we can recover? And second is about investment. Compared against our capital investment for last year, could you explain how much you actually execute. And is there any important or significant CapEx investment plan for this year?
Okay. Let me answer your question. For annual basis, when we saw Korea business and Overseas Food business, we do not break down by our region, but we will share the basic direction. For example, for overseas, our global sales, OP margin increased as you know. And for Korean Food business, last year, there were many issues such as cost -- material cost burden and volume reduction. So that's why Korea businesses OP margin was lower than what we expected. However, when we look at processed food and when we break down by processed food and FI, we need to think about foreign exchange rate impact and raw material price, that's why FI was highly impacted.
On the other hand, the processed food business slightly improved compared to the last year. So that's why we are seeing some hope for this year. For our FI business, as we said, raw material price become more recovering, and we are seeing volume growth for our FI business. In that sense, we could expect rebounding this year. And when it comes to processed food business, we are expecting continuous growth this year as well. So compared against last year, we are keeping our hope that it could be recovered further this year.
And let me answer your second question about CapEx investment. Last year, CapEx was within KRW 1 trillion executed within KRW 1 trillion and early last year, when we shared our guidance, our forecast was KRW 1.4 trillion, but due to our macroeconomic environment, we were kind of flexible in terms of executing the budget. That's why we could say significantly compared against our original target.
And for this year's guidance, what we could share is that it will be around KRW 1 trillion, which is a similar level compared to last year. And as we could see for the past 2 years, we will keep our keen eye on macroeconomic environment so that we could be very keen, entice and disciplined in terms of cost management.
And let me share a basic direction by business. For example, like Food, it will be around mid KRW 700 billion for CapEx and BIO, it will be around KRW 100 billion, and FNT, it will be around KRW 70 billion and F&C would be the rest. I hope that, that answered your question. If you have any further questions, please feel free to go ahead.
Next question is from Kim Jung Wook from Meritz.
A question about Selecta. I would like to ask for the progress of deal closing and within 2024, how does Selecta's performance is going to impact the overall CJCJ's performance? Or is it going to be positively or negatively impact the overall performance.
Also, the second question is about the distribution market changes in Korea. Of course, it might not be the direct impact right away, but we are seeing Chinese retailers such as Temu and Ali playing in Korea, and we are seeing intensified competition in the market. So please leave a comment on this.
And lastly, about the overseas market compared to the U.S., I'm seeing slowdown in business of China and Japan. And I'm not sure if this is because of the slower trend of K-food. So I would like to know what's your perspective on this slowdown.
Let me walk you through on Selecta progress. Well, now we are going through a merger filing by each country, and this is taking a lot of time. From our side, company B is targeting deal closing within this year. Compared to the previous year, because the industry outlook is improving, so the performance is also going to be improved compared to the previous year. So that is what we know about the Selecta business that's all.
And let me answer your question about the retail market changes because the platforms are diversified, it is more about consumers visiting the online and offline platforms themselves, and they have more options across the platforms. And I believe this is more helpful to our consumers, and it is going to definitely boost the demand in general.
And yes, we have new players such as Ali and Temu in Korea, and they have customization strategy catering to the consumer behavior and their demand. So we are paying keen attention to this. And also in terms of brand competition, the consumer customized platform based on the product channel mix strategy should be upgraded, and this is our basic sense for the strategy of CJCJ. About the slow business in China and Japan, recently from 2023, I believe you have a lot of news from media because the economy slowdown in China is being prolonged and K-food demand is also becoming slower and slower.
Other than that, the weaker exchange rates. And as you saw in our materials, the [ Ji Zhang Xi ] business, [ BIO ] was also impacting our overall performance. But in 2023, I believe we have already hit the bottom and we are going to rebound. So in order to respond to the economic slowdown in 2024, we're going to tap into the agents. Not only in the large cities, but also Tier 2 cities and Tier 3 cities, we are going to expand the coverage across the country. And secondly, we are going to minimize the online channels and the low-margin channels. We are going to increase entries into high-margin channels. And also besides K-food, we are going to utilize other categories because we recently launched Pasta and by doing so, we are going to increase the sales.
Next is Japan. Actually, we are seeing a similar situation in Japan compared to China. From Q4 2023, we made a lot of efforts to cut down SG&A to improve profitability. And also the Japanese yen has gotten weaker and the overall performance went down by 21%. And I believe that 2023 was the bottom and from 2024, the Micho sales is going to be stabilized. And we have Mandu among GSPs and also we have newly launched Kimbap, Frozen Kimbap and the Korean Street Food sales is going to increase. So the overall sales will be recovered.
Due to time constraints, we would like to get one more question. Last question is coming from Joo Younghoo from NH Securities.
Joo Younghoo from NH Securities. I have one last question for today. So regarding corporate value and program, I see there are a lot of questions in the market and I can see our PPR is kind of low, considering the characteristic of the industry. So we want to hear more from this number? And is there any solution regarding this low PPR?
So first of all, we are making a lot of efforts to increase our corporate value and we will continue to make such efforts. And for example, we want to grow our business. That will be our priority. At the same time to share our growth value with our shareholders, we will do our best and according to Finance Committee, maybe within February, there would be some specific guidelines regarding this aspect. So we are keeping our eyes on this issue. And after we get those numbers and guidelines, we can do some internal reviews and after that, we can share our plans for that. Thank you for your question.
So we are going to close IR for CJCJ. Thank you for your time.