QINGDAO, China and ROCKVILLE, Md., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Synutra International, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYUT, "Synutra"), a leading infant formula company in China, and a producer, marketer and seller of nutritional products for infants, children and adults, today announced that it ranked 5th overall in last week's China Central Television (CCTV) 2009 primetime advertising slot auction. The Company was awarded advertising slots approximately equivalent to a gross tender of RMB 223.4 million (USD $32.85 million), a 40% increase over its television advertising spending of RMB 158.0 million (USD $23.23 million) in the previous year. The slots granted to the Company exceeded those granted to the other dairy and infant formula industry participants in the auction.
Dr. William Weiqiao Wu, Synutra's President of Sales and Marketing, said, "The CCTV primetime slots will significantly boost our share of voice in the marketplace, and this primetime advertising opportunity is an important part of our brand rebuilding initiative and growth strategy for next year. We will frontload the primetime spots in the first calendar quarter of 2009, with corporate branding and product campaigns geared toward brand equity revitalization and new product launches, and will use the remaining slots to maintain our airwave presence throughout the year."
Dr. Wu continued, "CCTV remains the leading TV advertising media outlet in China and our campaign placements will benefit from CCTV's coverage, which has the nation's broadest reach."
Synutra Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Liang Zhang said, "We are encouraged by the recent government moves to clean up and rebuild the country's dairy industry in the aftermath of widespread melamine contamination earlier this year. We expect the industry to undergo a major restructuring, and we are planning accordingly. We will initiate aggressive marketing campaigns in early 2009 in anticipation of such restructuring. Adhering to our core value of ensuring product quality and safety for our customers, we have chosen to use our international resources to supplement domestic milk supplies with imported dairy ingredients for our core infant formula products, such as the new U-Smart series and the Super series. We are committed to providing our Chinese consumers with the best and safest products, regardless of where the ingredients are sourced. We pride ourselves on our standing as an international company that is deeply rooted in the Chinese marketplace, and I believe our new market positioning and growth strategy will help rebuild and enhance shareholder value."
About Synutra International, Inc.
Synutra operates nine subsidiaries developing, producing, distributing and selling dairy-based nutritional products across the People's Republic of China. It offers its products for infants, children, adults, pregnant women and nursing mothers under the "Sheng Yuan" or "Synutra" master brand and several sub-brands, including "Super," "U-Smart" and "Mingshan." The Group's extensive sales network covers 29 provinces and provincial-level municipalities in China, and comprises over 420 distributors and over 1,000 sub-distributors who sell Synutra's products in nearly 63,400 retail outlets.
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