A financial report is a mirror. Recently, multiple listed beverage companies in China have disclosed their 2025 performance reports. The same track shows vastly different results: some see both revenue and profit surge, while others face revenue decline and profit pressure. Behind this is a predetermined divergence. As health-conscious and scenario-based consumer demand reshapes the market, channel fragmentation and price competition add pressure, ending the era of 'distribution wins.' What replaces it is a comprehensive competition in product structure, channel efficiency, and brand capability. What changes occurred in the beverage industry in 2025? Who is completing structural upgrades, and who is under passive pressure? Through the financial data, perhaps we can see a more realistic industry answer.
Competitive Landscape of Bottled Water: A 'Red Ocean' Game Reshaped by Price Wars Bottled water, once seen as a 'stable business,' entered a new competitive cycle in 2025. In the past, China's packaged water market maintained a relatively stable structure: Nongfu Spring dominated the high-end with natural water, C'estbon controlled the mass market with purified water, and Wahaha focused on lower-tier markets. The three had clear segmentation and balanced each other. This balance fluctuated in 2024. Affected by public opinion, Nongfu Spring launched a 1-yuan low-price green bottle purified water, directly entering the core price band of C'estbon and Wahaha, triggering a price war. This change quickly brought chain reactions. Although Nongfu Spring gained market share through low-price strategy, its packaged drinking water business revenue in 2024 was 15.952 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 21.3%, indicating that profit dilution from low prices is an indisputable fact. In 2025, Nongfu Spring decisively adjusted its strategy. Through the display standard of 'red bottles as the main, green bottles as supplementary,' coupled with channel incentives and price control, and strengthening the execution of '10,000-box displays' at terminals, it improved sell-through efficiency and price stability. This ultimately led to a 17.3% revenue rebound in the packaged water business, while also driving profit margin recovery. But for brands directly impacted, this price war was more like a war of attrition. Under the dual attack of Nongfu Spring's 'price war' and Wahaha's 'channel layout,' China Resources C'estbon launched 'crazy' expense investments to protect market share. In 2025, its sales expense ratio rose from 27.5% in 2024 to 30.4%, attempting to stabilize the base with channel subsidies, but ultimately failed to reverse the revenue decline. Facing pressure in its main business, China Resources Beverage had to pin hopes on a 'second growth curve,' accelerating diversification into tea drinks, functional beverages, coffee, and other products, trying to reduce over-reliance on packaged water. But diversification is never achieved overnight. Instead, regional brands that deeply cultivate niche tracks were the first to find a path of counter-trend growth. In 2025, Quanyangquan leveraged its 'Northeast water source' combined with new media channels to achieve a 33.84% year-on-year sales increase, with mineral water business net profit growing nearly 30%; 5100 Tibet Glacier expanded through key account development and special channel layout, with water business revenue growing 115.3%. This also shows that beyond the fierce competition among giants, regional brands with water source advantages and deep channel cultivation can still find breakthrough paths through differentiated positioning and flexible tactics. As the smoke clears, competition continues. Whether it's giants transforming defensively or regional brands seizing opportunities, the key in the second half is not who runs faster, but who can find their position in this major transformation and discover new growth space.
Growth Logic Shift: Sugar-Free Tea and Functional Beverages Take Over as Growth Drivers While the packaged water business is stuck in a stock tug-of-war, the growth focus of the beverage industry is quietly shifting to another track. The most direct signal comes from the revenue structure changes of leading companies. In 2025, Nongfu Spring's tea beverage business revenue exceeded bottled water for the first time, becoming the largest growth pillar. Behind this 'baton handover' is the industry's growth logic shifting from 'basic water demand' to 'functional and experiential demand.' This trend is also confirmed in the changes of other leading companies. In 2025, Uni-President continued to consolidate its mass market share with core products like Ice Black Tea and Shuangcui Lemon Tea, and launched Chunfu Roasted Tea based on Chunfu Green Tea, driving its tea beverage business revenue to 8.802 billion yuan, maintaining stable growth despite overall pressure. Master Kong, while stabilizing its sugary tea base, continued to increase investment in sugar-free tea and health water tracks, launching products like Fresh Green Tea, Tea's Heir new flavors, sugar-free jasmine tea, and Chinese-style health water, expanding consumption scenarios to daily health, driving significant profit growth. If the layout and growth of sugar-free tea are about increment in segmentation, then functional beverages are experiencing a more direct growth from demand explosion. On one hand, scenarios like sports, fitness, and outdoor activities have become more routine, driving demand for electrolyte and energy supplement products; on the other hand, under the pace of life with overtime and staying up late, refreshing has become a higher-frequency need. In 2025, Dongpeng Beverage's core product 'Dongpeng Tequila' achieved annual revenue of 15.599 billion yuan, successfully entering the 15-billion-yuan big product camp; the second curve 'Dongpeng Bule' surged 118.99% year-on-year, with revenue share jumping from 9.45% in 2024 to 15.70%, driving the overall business structure to extend to multiple categories. Meanwhile, China Foods' 'Monster' functional beverage sales grew 45% year-on-year, also becoming an important revenue support. From sugar-free tea to functional beverages, different categories are successively becoming new growth sources, essentially a result of changing consumer demand. Currently, consumers no longer stop at quenching thirst; they choose beverages that match their current needs at different times and scenarios: daily, sports, refreshing, and health, each corresponding to different choices. This segmentation based on scenarios and functions makes beverage choices more diverse and pushes categories toward more refined evolution.
Reconstruction of Classic Categories: Carbonated and Juice Products Seek New Certainty As consumption habits change, for classic categories to continue to stand out, the key is not just 'healthier' but finding new selling points and opportunities. While sugar-free tea and functional beverages grow, classic categories like carbonated and juice are also trying to find increment in stock—either by changing product thinking or expanding consumption scenarios. In short, giving consumers new reasons to buy. On one hand, leading brands are starting to focus on more refined product portfolios and operations. In 2025, Swire Coca-Cola's mainland market deepened the distribution of sugar-free series like Zero and Fiber+, optimized product mix, and achieved a profit attributable of HK$846 million. China Foods strengthened cooperation with catering channels through themed activities like the 'Coca-Cola BBQ Festival,' while increasing layout in emerging channels such as snack discount stores, community e-commerce, and flash warehouses to meet instant consumption needs and enhance consumer purchase experience. So, classic categories are not without growth space; they need to continuously give consumers new reasons to choose—whether it's taste, function, or usage scenario. As long as it makes sense and is practical, growth space remains. On the other hand, many brands are extending outward, developing new channels, and gaining new growth. In 2025, Wanglaoji achieved a profit growth of 8.88%. Its logic lies in breaking out of the single 'herbal tea' attribute, stabilizing the base by strengthening catering scenarios and festival gifting markets; simultaneously accelerating overseas expansion, launching international can products in markets like Saudi Arabia and Australia, trying to expand increment with the concept of 'Oriental health.' However, not all brands can successfully complete the transformation in this adjustment. In 2025, Huanlejia faced dual pressure from weak growth in core products and raw material cost fluctuations, with net profit plummeting 70%. Although the brand has begun trying to enter new sales scenarios through gifting channels and snack discount systems, in the short term, it is still difficult to offset overall pressure. As emerging categories continue to seize consumer mindshare, the natural growth space for traditional categories is shrinking. If companies lack new growth support points, pressure will further amplify. In such a competitive landscape, holding the base is only the first step. Whether they can complete category upgrades and structural adjustments is the key to determining future space.
Final Thoughts The 2025 financial report of the beverage industry is both a report card and a watershed. In the second half of the beverage industry, the competition is no longer about temporary share, but about structural strength, innovation, and execution under long-termism. The next round of growth belongs to pioneers who proactively seek change and upgrade with the trend.
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