Source丨品饮汇观察 Coconut tree Group and Huanlejia, once dominant players in the coconut beverage market, are now facing the embarrassment of growth stagnation. Recently, Huanlejia's 2024 annual report showed a 3.53% year-on-year decline in revenue, a sharp 47.06% drop in net profit, and a 3.66% decline in revenue from its pillar product, coconut juice. Notably, the Q1 2025 report indicates the decline is widening, with revenue down 18.52% and net profit down 58.27% year-on-year. Although Coconut tree Group has not disclosed its 2024 sales figures, its growth has shown signs of fatigue in recent years. Public information shows that Coconut tree Group's 2024 output value was 5.006 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.12% year-on-year. Compared to its 2013 revenue of 4 billion yuan, it took Coconut tree Group ten years to surpass the 5 billion yuan mark. In stark contrast to the sluggishness of traditional brands, new forces like Qinglan, Chanbao, and KOKO Coconut are demonstrating explosive growth—while these "new waves" accelerate their breakout with innovative products and precise strategies, traditional giants are mired in product aging, scenario fixation, and cost pressures. In the coconut beverage market, the new wave is pushing the old. ◎Image source: Xiaohongshu @朵朵的店 Market Divergence: The Carnival of Coconut Water and the Twilight of Traditional Coconut Juice From an external perspective, the structural divergence in the coconut beverage market is accelerating the replacement of old forces with new ones. China's coconut water market has surged at a compound annual growth rate of 60.8% from 2019 to 2024, exceeding $1 billion in 2024 and expected to reach $2.65 billion by 2029. This growth is driven by new tea drink collaborations (such as Luckin's raw coconut latte), live-stream e-commerce penetration, and health concepts. Based on this, Qinglan's "raw coconut milk" and KOKO Coconut's fresh-extracted coconut water are precisely riding this trend. Meanwhile, the traditional coconut juice market has entered a mature phase, with Huanlejia's coconut juice revenue declining 3.66% in 2024 and Coconut tree Group's output growth nearing zero. Fixed consumption scenarios, stagnant product innovation, and price wars have left traditional coconut juice without growth momentum. A deeper contradiction lies in traditional brands' failure to keep pace with consumption upgrades. The new generation of consumers seeks "natural," "functional," and "aesthetic" products, while Coconut tree and Huanlejia remain stuck on the traditional selling point of "fresh-squeezed coconut juice," with packaging unchanged for years and lagging health-oriented upgrades. In contrast, new forces are thriving: Qinglan is racing on the "coconut+" track, entering office afternoon tea scenarios with "coconut+tea drinks"; Chanbao uses Thai fragrant coconut's "floral aroma" and Philippine volcanic rock coconut's "mineral sweetness" to create a premium experience; KOKO Coconut meets portability needs with PET bottles and stand-up pouches. These innovations not only broaden consumption scenarios but also avoid head-on competition with traditional giants through differentiated positioning. The Rise and Fall of the Old Wave: The Growth Formula of Traditional Giants Fails The predicament of Coconut tree and Huanlejia is a typical example of the failure of traditional beverage brands' growth models. As the former third-largest player in the coconut juice market, Huanlejia relies on two products for 70% of its revenue: 1.25L bottles and 245ml cans. These "classic" products, born a decade ago, remain its revenue mainstay. This "unchanging in the face of change" strategy is failing in a market with rapidly evolving consumer demands: young consumers' demand for low-sugar, functional drinks is surging, but Huanlejia's coconut juice remains stuck on the "fresh-squeezed" selling point, with no zero-sugar versions or cross-category entries into coffee or tea. Moreover, its marketing strategy still relies on celebrity endorsements, with online advertising accounting for only 22.5% in 2024, and slow deployment in new channels like live-stream e-commerce and social seeding. As the traffic effect of Yang Mi's endorsement fades, the connection between the brand and young consumers is severed. Coconut tree Group's situation is also lamentable. This giant, which once held a 75% share of the coconut juice market, saw its 2024 output value grow only 0.12% year-on-year. Its slow climb from 4 billion to 5 billion over a decade exposes a strategic imbalance of "heavy marketing, light innovation." Despite going viral in recent years with "edgy marketing" and the "Coconut Cloud Latte" collaboration with Luckin, its core product remains the traditional coconut juice in red iron cans, with consumption scenarios limited to festive gifts and family gatherings. This path dependency has caused its market share to drop from 75% in 1999 to 26.3% in 2019. Even with revenue exceeding 5 billion in 2023, it cannot hide the crisis of exhausted growth momentum—Coconut tree took a decade to go from 4 billion to 5 billion, while China's beverage market expanded from 500 billion to over a trillion in the same period. ◎Image source: Xiaohongshu @Charron The plight of traditional giants is essentially the failure of the "big single product + big channel" model of the industrial era. In Huanlejia's product structure, coconut juice and fruit cans account for over 80% of revenue; Coconut tree Group has ingrained the perception of "coconut juice = Coconut tree" into its brand DNA, causing it to miss the boom of new categories like coconut water and coconut milk. In fact, Coconut tree and Huanlejia are not without chances to turn around, but transformation requires breaking multiple inertias. What urgently needs addressing is not marketing controversies but the thinness of their product matrix. The Rise of the New Wave: The Breakout Equation of New Forces In stark contrast to the stagnation of traditional brands, new forces like Qinglan, Chanbao, and KOKO Coconut are using innovation as a spear to tear open market gaps. Qinglan's breakthrough lies in "redefining coconut-based beverages." Its "coconut+" series breaks the traditional boundaries of coconut juice and coconut water, blending coconut milk with tea and cow's milk to launch iconic products like "raw coconut milk" and "light coconut tea." With the certification of "coconut+ category pioneer" from Shangpu Consulting, Qinglan not only captures category mindshare but also leverages aseptic cold-fill technology for 72-hour ultra-fast freshness locking, extending shelf life to 12 months while retaining natural active enzymes. This dual advantage of "technology + efficiency" has pushed its repurchase rate above 80%, making it a staple in high-frequency scenarios like convenience stores and coffee shops. More noteworthy is its strategic depth—reserves of derivatives like light coconut Americano and coconut milk ice cream signal an evolution from a single hit product to an ecosystem matrix. Chanbao's breakout is built on a "global flavor map." The brand spent three years visiting eight golden coconut-producing regions, including Thailand and the Philippines, uncovering regional characteristics like the "floral aroma" of fragrant coconuts and the "mineral sweetness" of volcanic rock coconuts, and optimizing sugar-acid ratios through "natural sweetness code" technology. This "direct sourcing + flavor customization" strategy satisfies consumers' demand for "natural and additive-free" products while building an ingredient barrier competitors find hard to replicate. Its product matrix covers three categories: 100% coconut water, fresh-squeezed coconut juice, and raw coconut milk, and through strategic new products like coconut coffee and coconut milk ice cream, it constructs all-scenario penetration from breakfast to afternoon tea to sports replenishment. KOKO Coconut's competitiveness lies in every detail of its supply chain. As the first brand in the fresh-extracted coconut water track with its own supply chain, its automated stand-up pouch production line and PET bottle filling line meet diverse packaging needs while boosting capacity to industry-leading levels. From organic cultivation in Southeast Asian coconut groves to full traceability of finished products, KOKO Coconut turns "fresh-extraction craftsmanship" into a technical moat. This "from branch to tongue" quality control capability allows it to occupy high ground in convenience store cold cabinets and new tea drink collaborations. ◎Image source: Xiaohongshu @婀美咛 Industry insiders point out that the current competition over raw materials in coconut beverages is essentially a restructuring of supply chain efficiency. For example, Qinglan's "72-hour ultra-fast freshness locking," Chanbao's global direct sourcing system, and KOKO Coconut's stand-up pouch production line all essentially shorten the "origin-factory-consumer" chain to improve freshness and cost-effectiveness. Traditional brands, relying on bulk raw material procurement and long-shelf-life processes, do not hold an advantage in this supply chain efficiency competition. On the other hand, future competition in the coconut beverage market will extend into deeper territories. Qinglan's coconut milk ice cream and Chanbao's coconut coffee indicate that coconut-based ingredients are penetrating into leisure foods, baking, and other sectors. It is clear that the transformation of the coconut beverage market is essentially a microcosm of the shift in consumer sovereignty—while traditional brands still operate with industrial thinking, new forces are using "user co-creation" to reconstruct R&D logic and open incremental markets through innovation. Of course, challenges also exist for emerging brands. They must guard against the trap of "heavy traffic, light supply chain." Additionally, as competition intensifies, strategies relying solely on internet-famous products are unsustainable; continuous product iteration and scenario exploration will be key. In summary, this game between the "old wave" and the "new wave" will ultimately reshape the value coordinate system of the coconut beverage market—it no longer belongs to traditional giants that dominate through scale and channels, but to new forces that truly understand consumers and dare to break boundaries.