Dumex Baby Food Co, an infant formula company owned by French food group Danone SA, has reduced the prices of its new products to "answer calls from the Chinese government and further benefit consumers," the company said on Wednesday.

Analysts describe this move as a "comeback effort" to win back Dumex's lost market share in the wake of a series of scandals in 2013.

The company has set the price of its flagship PreciNutri series, a new product line with an upgraded formula that hit the market in February 2014, to be lower than its flagship products in 2013 from Tuesday, according to an e-mail sent by the company to the Global Times on Wednesday.

 "Although the events in 2013 did not eliminate Dumex from the ranks of leading baby milk powder brands in China, pressure from its competitors has forced the company to act," Yan Qiang, a senior analyst on the dairy industry and a partner at Hejun Consulting, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

A can of baby milk powder weighing 900 grams with upgraded formula is now priced at 188 yuan ($30.59), in contrast to 229 yuan in 2013, the company said in its statement.

Overall, the company's products after the repricing are 7.9 percent to 17.9 percent cheaper than from 2013, with an average reduction of 7.6 percent, according to the company.

The policy also applies to products sold on the brand's online retail store.

The company, a household name that entered the Chinese market in the 1990s, was engulfed in a series of negative events in 2013, causing its market share to drop significantly.

"2013 saw the market share of Dumex fall from 12 percent to today's 6 percent," Chen Lianfang, an analyst from Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant, told the Global Times Wednesday.

The market share ranking of the French brand has dropped from No.1 to No.7, according to the estimation of an industry insider. 

The company's involvement in contaminated products from New Zealand dairy company Fonterra and in a kickback scandal with Chinese hospital staff, followed by an anti-trust probe by authorities, have greatly compromised the company's reputation and leading position in the market, according to analysts.

The sizable price reduction gives Dumex's products a price advantage over competing brands and is a boost in the "money for value" offered to customers, Yan noted.

Foreign baby milk powder brands typically upgrade their formula and then raise the price of their products, which makes Dumex's repricing of its new products stand out, analysts said.

 "Thanks to the fat margins in the milk powder industry, Dumex can leverage some of its profit for market share," Yan said.

The gross profit margin for the milk powder industry could be as high as 50 percent, he noted.

Other players unaffected by the Fonterra scandal soon filled the vacuum left over by the retreat by Dumex, and the road to a full recovery for the embattled brand would be both time-consuming and bumpy, Chen said.

"Mengniu Dairy is not planning to reduce its milk powder product prices as it focuses on consolidation of newly acquired business," a staff member with the public relations department of Mengniu told the Global Times on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday.

The Inner Mongolia-based dairy company made its entry into the milk powder business by acquiring the Guangdong-based Yashili brand in June 2013.

The world's biggest food company Nestlé, which operates an infant formula business, has no plans to cut the price of its milk powder business, He Tong, public relations manager of Nestlé, told the Global Times Wednesday.

Doubt over whether Dumex will come back successfully was shared by some consumers.

"Dumex should fix its tarred image which might prove to be more effective than a price cut," said 31-year-old Wang Qingqin and father of a one-year-old boy.

"Price is not an issue when it comes to milk powder for my kid," Wang noted.

Dumex's parent company Danone SA disclosed an estimated loss of sales revenue of 370 million euros ($508 million) due to the contaminated milk scandal in its 2013 financial report.