To the last strand

It started with a sausage. A three-inch, complementary ham sausage, to be precise.

The price war for the mainland's US$8.8 billion instant noodle market sparked last year by Uni-President China's small sausage giveaways soon escalated into free drinks, extra seasonings, and other gifts as incumbent heavyweight Tingyi (Cayman Islands), owner of the Master Kong brand, sought to defend its patch.

While Chinese consumers who eat their way through 44 billion packets of noodles each year were delighted, shareholders were left underwhelmed.

Taiwanese-based Uni-President, well-known for its pickled cabbage-flavoured noodles, has now called a truce in the bruising battle that had depressed its margins, bringing the free sausage promotion to an end.

"It seems to be quite an emotionally charged, rather than a rational competition," said Torsten Stocker, a partner at consulting firm AT Kearney.

Tingyi, which has a market value of US$14.8 billion, accounts for 44.1 per cent of sales volume in the mainland's noodle market, while noodle revenue comprised 36.75 per cent of its total revenue in the first half, compared with 30.9 per cent for Uni-President. The giveaway campaign did help the smaller Uni-President increase its share of the instant noodle market on the mainland, which climbed 1.8 percentage points to 16.9 per cent in the first half of this year from the same period last year.