---
title: "Mizone: Struggling to Bounce Back?"
description: "As spring temperatures rise, electrolyte drinks are entering their peak sales season. Recently, Danone's Mizone launched a limited-edition 'refreshing grass flavor' drink for outings, aiming to meet consumers' hydration and recovery needs during spring travel. After peaking at 9.8 billion yuan in 2015, Mizone's sales halved, but have recently shown signs of recovery, with double-digit growth for two consecutive years in China."
author: "付艳翠"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-04-15"
language: "en"
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---

# Mizone: Struggling to Bounce Back?

> As spring temperatures rise, electrolyte drinks are entering their peak sales season. Recently, Danone's Mizone launched a limited-edition 'refreshing grass flavor' drink for outings, aiming to meet consumers' hydration and recovery needs during spring travel. After peaking at 9.8 billion yuan in 2015, Mizone's sales halved, but have recently shown signs of recovery, with double-digit growth for two consecutive years in China.

As spring temperatures rise, electrolyte drinks are entering their peak sales season. Recently, Danone's Mizone launched a limited-edition 'refreshing grass flavor' drink for outings. According to the brand, the product aims to meet consumers' needs for hydration and physical recovery during spring outings.
Image / Mizone official Weibo
After reaching a sales peak of 9.8 billion yuan in 2015, Mizone's sales once halved. Recently, however, Mizone seems to be bouncing back a bit.
Danone's financial reports show that Mizone has achieved double-digit growth in the Chinese market for the second consecutive year. In 2024, Danone's CNAO (China, North Asia, and Oceania region) water and beverage business grew 12.2% year-on-year to 764 million euros (approximately 5.821 billion yuan).
But beneath the prosperity, undercurrents are stirring.
On one hand, competition in the functional beverage industry is intensifying; on the other, Mizone's advertising slogans are not as memorable as Red Bull's or Dongshen Te Yin's, its bottle design lacks the fun of Scream, and its main products still use white sugar as a primary ingredient.
Mizone may face severe challenges to keep 'selling'.
Who drinks Mizone?
While Red Bull and Dongshen Te Yin firmly occupy consumers' minds with slogans like 'tired and sleepy' and maintain their leading positions in the energy drink market, consumers' perception of Mizone's brand slogans 'Mizone back' and 'Mizone by me' remains confused.
Image / Mizone official Weibo
'I don't think I've ever seen people around me drink Mizone. What's Mizone's slogan again?' Zhang Luyao, a media professional born in 1993, told the author that her perception of Mizone is vague.
'As a functional drink, I think consumers doing physical labor are more likely to buy Mizone. They drink it when tired to replenish energy, similar to supplementing sugar. Many kids around me drink it as a treat, and I see it more often bought as a regular beverage,' Zhang Luyao said.
**Mizone, once positioned as a sports vitamin drink, is no longer the first choice for consumers after exercise.**
Two years ago, to lose weight, Zhang Luyao became a fitness enthusiast. But she never drinks sports drinks like Mizone after workouts because it would affect her weight loss results. 'And my coach is strict, not allowing drinks that claim to be sugar-free but actually contain sugar. If I really can't stand it, I can eat a banana.'
Not only Zhang Luyao, but in her gym, she has never seen anyone drink beverages.
'Women with body shaping needs drink plain water; men building muscle drink protein powder or special drinks the coach prepares to help muscle growth,' Zhang Luyao recalled. After losing weight, when she needs to replenish energy after exercise, she chooses jasmine honey tea, coconut juice, or milk tea based on preference.
A distributor from Fujian also told the author directly, 'In places like sports venues, many people don't touch these so-called sports or electrolyte drinks; instead, filtered water or mineral water sells a bit.'
**On the other hand, Mizone has been discovered by some consumers in 'strange' ways, uncovering new uses.**
For example, in hospital proctology departments, to help patients take laxatives more easily, doctors suggest mixing the powder with Mizone and a soft drink. 'Other drinks are hard to swallow; only Mizone's lime and peach flavors can mask the medicine's rotten orange taste.'
Some post-operative patients, when unable to eat, have Mizone prescribed as medicine. 'One bottle a day for 10 days, nothing else.'
Even Douyin blogger Banfo Xianren once commented that Mizone can be used not only to relieve hangovers but also to nourish flowers. Later, netizens found that expired Mizone is like 'flower resurrection water'—'watering dying flowers with Mizone actually revived them.'
Image / Douyin
The author asked several consumers who occasionally buy Mizone. They buy it partly for cycling needs, but more often out of a random desire for a drink when out. 'Looking at the shelf, sometimes I just pick whichever looks good.'
As for Mizone's vitamin function, it's not highly valued. 'In daily life, I think I should focus on a healthy diet. To meet my body's electrolyte needs, I eat fruits, vegetables, lean meat, and other electrolyte-rich foods to maintain normal metabolism and physiological functions,' one beverage consumer said.
Wang Xufeng, executive president of the Capital Health Nutrition Food Society, also pointed out that the human body needs more than a dozen vitamins daily. Nutrient beverages contain limited and single types, especially fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and E, which are hard to supplement through drinks. Moreover, the vitamin addition in beverages is too singular, and sugar content is too high, so it's not recommended to supplement vitamins through drinks.
In this context, Mizone's unclear market positioning and misalignment with consumer needs have become obstacles to its growth.
Yang Huaiyu, an analyst in the consumer goods industry, also told the author that Mizone was initially positioned as a vitamin drink, not strictly a sports drink, leading to unclear positioning in the functional beverage market and confused consumer perception.
In the FMCG sector, consumers quickly accept clear product functions and form deep product memories. But Mizone, originating from New Zealand, entered China in 2003 and has told the story of a sports vitamin drink for 22 years, yet consumers still find its positioning 'confusing.'
Clearly, swinging between 'functional drink' and 'mass beverage' increases uncertainty in product sales and keeps Mizone from entering consumers' shopping lists.
Another step behind
**In fact, Mizone not only has the legacy problem of unclear product positioning, but also channel and inventory management errors, slow new product updates, and failure to keep up with health consumption trends, which have been criticized by the outside world.**
Back in 2013, after the SARS epidemic, consumers' demand for vitamin drinks became more urgent. Mizone changed its slogan to 'At critical moments, pulse back anytime.' In the following three years, Mizone ranked first in market share in bottled functional drinks in China.
Image / Mizone official Weibo
From sales data, from 2013 to 2015, Mizone's terminal retail sales were 6.7 billion yuan, 8.6 billion yuan, and 9.8 billion yuan, with annual growth rates stable at double digits, performing impressively in the same category.
**But in 2016, despite Danone's stable performance, Mizone experienced a rollercoaster. Danone's report stated, 'In China, Mizone's sales grew year-on-year in the fourth quarter, but due to inventory adjustments during market transformation, full-year sales declined.'**
According to The Beijing News, Zhu Danpeng, a researcher at the China Brand Research Institute's food and beverage division, said, 'Mizone may have declined 30% in 2016.' He analyzed that although Mizone's market sales seemed booming in 2015, actual sales were not as high as they appeared; 'channel stuffing was severe,' leading to channel collapse from the second half of 2016.
In this regard, some distributors also told the media, 'Mizone used to have a profit of 1 yuan or 0.5 yuan per box, with serious cross-region selling, often requiring subsidies.'
Yang Huaiyu said that in the face of market competition, Mizone lagged in product innovation, with slow new product launches, failing to meet diverse consumer needs. It also reacted slowly to market changes, such as insufficient grasp of health trends and failure to adjust product formulas to meet consumer demand for healthy drinks.
In fact, when the entire industry shifted to '0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories,' Mizone failed to launch sugar-free products promptly. As Genki Forest's Alien, Zhanma, and others seized niche markets through differentiated positioning (like electrolyte water, energy drinks), Mizone's share was further diluted.
Of course, Mizone has been trying to regain its footing in recent years, but it always gives the outside world a feeling of 'half a beat slow.'
In April 2020, Mizone officially announced a comprehensive brand renewal, including a more attractive, fashionable, and youthful packaging, and a new formula with increased vitamin content.
A year later, Mizone finally launched sparkling water and sugar-free drinks, three years after Genki Forest's sparkling water. In 2021, Mizone launched its first vitamin sparkling drink and its first vitamin drink with 0 sugar, 0 fat, N vitamins, and dietary fiber.
'Mizone was initially positioned as a vitamin drink, so it had more opportunity to develop electrolyte water early. But it wasn't until 2024, two years after electrolyte water became popular, that Mizone launched 'Mizone+ Electrolyte' products,' said another media professional, Xiao Liang.
Beyond product updates, Mizone has also focused on distributor channels.
Some distributors have said that Mizone requires terminal retail prices to be strictly controlled at 5 yuan, with distributor payment at 46 yuan per box, selling to secondary wholesalers at 49 yuan, and to terminals at 52 yuan, significantly increasing profits compared to before.
In channels, Mizone also realized that competitors like Nongfu Spring and Wahaha had strengthened terminal displays through freezer placement, while Mizone did not follow similar strategies, leading to decreased terminal exposure. In recent years, it has joined the freezer placement battle.
A frontline salesperson for Mizone shared their daily work: riding an electric bike to terminals to organize shelf displays, check, take photos, develop new customers' freezer displays, and place freezers.
'Our school also had a freezer placement battle last year, and Mizone was one of them,' said Li Han, a post-2000 student at a university in Yunnan.
Image / Mizone joins the freezer placement battle
Fortunately, although actions were slow, a series of reforms have indeed helped Mizone regain some momentum.
Danone has not disclosed Mizone's specific sales, but Mizone has achieved double-digit growth for two consecutive years. Some media estimate that, excluding exchange rate effects, Mizone's scale in 2024 roughly exceeded 6 billion yuan.
Can't let go of the 'Mizone' label
Not only is product update speed slow, but in creating new categories, it also fails to leave a deep impression on users.
Generally, the best way to launch a new category is to use a new brand. For example, Dongshen Beverage launched a new product 'Hydrate' alongside Dongshen Te Yin; Nongfu Spring created 'Scream' and 'Lidong' brands for functional drinks; Genki Forest has Alien electrolyte water.
'But Mizone seems unable to let go of the 'Mizone' brand effect. It still uses the familiar Mizone bottle, just with different packaging, and directly launched 'Mizone+ Electrolyte' products,' Xiao Liang said. From a product strategy perspective, one product cannot occupy two perceptions, and vitamins and electrolytes are perceived differently. 'I think this move is not wise.'
**Meanwhile, functional drinks have become one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors in recent years.** According to data from the China Industrial Research Institute, the functional beverage market in China exceeded 140 billion yuan in 2023, with an average annual compound growth rate of 7.08%.
Functional drinks are becoming the 'second growth curve' for companies.
In the domestic functional beverage market, energy drinks like Red Bull, Dongshen Te Yin, and Lehu hold a significant share due to their refreshing and energy-boosting properties. In the electrolyte drink segment, products like Genki Forest's Alien, Pocari Sweat, and Dongshen Hydrate are already popular, which will inevitably squeeze the living space of Mizone, which focuses on vitamin drinks.
**As more players enter, competition is intensifying, and Mizone is also troubled by product homogenization and price wars.**
Yang Huaiyu analyzed for the author that market competition is fierce, product homogenization is severe, and continuous innovation is needed to maintain competitiveness. 'I think the opportunity in the functional drink track lies in launching dedicated products for different consumption scenarios and groups, such as post-exercise recovery drinks, daily supplement drinks, etc. Also, developing new flavors and formulas to meet consumers' desire for novelty and change.'
However, creating differentiated advantages is not easy.
'Consumers' changes in functional drink consumption mainly manifest in seeking personalized, customized drinks to meet different occasions and needs,' Yang Huaiyu said.
Scenario-based marketing seems to be one way to differentiate products.
Take Mizone's latest outing-limited new product, the refreshing grass flavor drink, for example. Its promotion targets spring/summer outing scenarios, meeting consumers' needs for quick hydration and recovery during outings. A few days ago, Jianlibao's 'Thirsty?' launched a refreshing electrolyte water for spring outings or outdoor sports.
Image / Mizone official Weibo
'There are too many similar, homogenized products; the industry has formed infinite involution. Be cautious about becoming an agent for electrolyte water,' a distributor told the author.
In fact, the author's visits to offline channels also found that price wars in functional drinks are intensifying.
In the same supermarket, next to Mizone retailing at 4.5 yuan, Dongshen's Hydrate, retailing at 5 yuan, had its price reduced to 2.9 yuan. In another supermarket, Genki Forest, retailing at 4.9 yuan, had a 8.9% discount label, while Mizone had a 9.2% discount label.
Image / Electrolyte drinks on promotion
**Not only offline, but online platforms also see price wars.**
On JD.com, 'Mizone+' 15 bottles of 600ml were originally priced at 69.9 yuan, with a promotional price of 61.9 yuan, making each bottle 4.12 yuan. Traditional electrolyte brand Pocari Sweat's 15 bottles of 500ml were originally 89 yuan, promotional price 75 yuan, about 5 yuan per bottle. Alien professional sports electrolyte water's 15 bottles of 500ml were originally 70 yuan, promotional price 65 yuan, about 4.3 yuan per bottle.
Image / Mizone also runs promotions on online platforms
**Facing fierce competition in functional drinks, with vague market positioning, homogenization, and price wars, cultivating more consumers' habit of drinking Mizone may be the management's top priority.**


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