---
title: "The Most Unambitious Product in History, Yet It Has Sold Well for 82 Years! Why?"
description: "A product that hasn't upgraded its packaging in decades would normally die, but this little bottle not only survived but thrived, achieving 'one product, 82 years, annual sales of 27 billion yuan' and earning the nickname 'one red bottle conquers the world.' This article explores the reasons behind its success."
author: "山风 Zoe"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-08-06"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-most-unambitious-product-in-history-yet-it-has-sold-well-for-82-year-babb6925/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-most-unambitious-product-in-history-yet-it-has-sold-well-for-82-year-babb6925.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0oGaxLujZaDegPS-79cyAQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%8F%B2%E4%B8%8A%E6%9C%80%E4%B8%8D%E4%B8%8A%E8%BF%9B%E7%9A%84%E4%BA%A7%E5%93%81-%E5%8D%B4%E7%95%85%E9%94%8082%E5%B9%B4-%E5%87%AD%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88-babb6925.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-most-unambitious-product-in-history-yet-it-has-sold-well-for-82-year-babb6925/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# The Most Unambitious Product in History, Yet It Has Sold Well for 82 Years! Why?

> A product that hasn't upgraded its packaging in decades would normally die, but this little bottle not only survived but thrived, achieving 'one product, 82 years, annual sales of 27 billion yuan' and earning the nickname 'one red bottle conquers the world.' This article explores the reasons behind its success.

Click 'Read Original' for details.
A product that hasn't upgraded its packaging in decades would normally die.
But this little magic bottle not only didn't die, it's thriving, achieving **"one product, 82 years, annual sales of 27 billion yuan" and earning the nickname "one red bottle conquers the world"** .
Why is that?
******01**
**The most willful and unambitious product in history
**Yet it's been on a winning streak**
This product originated in the 1930s in the laboratory of Dr. Minoru Shirota, where he successfully conducted enhanced cultivation of lactic acid bacteria. The resulting strain could withstand the stomach acid and bile, reaching the intestines to exert its effects.
In 1935, the little magic bottle first appeared, with the mission of promoting intestinal health.
In 1964, it first landed in China. Four years later, it switched to eco-friendly, biodegradable materials, becoming the familiar sight we see today.
That product is Yakult.
**But for the next decades, Yakult never changed again!**
**1. Refused 68,000 requests to change the size**
Not only did the outer packaging remain unchanged, but the bottle size also stayed the same. **Even 68,000 Filipinos petitioned on Facebook for Yakult to produce a 1L bottle, but Yakult was so willful it ignored them.**
The Philippine broadcast network ABS-CBN, unable to stand by, joined the cause and asked the company for an explanation, receiving this response:
Producing only small bottles ensures one-time consumption, preventing bacteria growth and secondary contamination from leftovers, and also prevents a decline in active lactic acid bacteria count. For ordinary people, one small bottle a day provides sufficient active lactic acid bacteria for the body's needs.
Truly the first company to not let people have their fill.
**2. Under intense market competition, still refused to change**
Due to its single product, when entering a market, Yakult may not have the strong resources of its competitors. In Korea, it lags behind Namyang Dairy's strong product portfolio; in Taiwan, it lacks Wei Chuan's financial resources; in mainland China, it lacks the grassland culture resources of Mengniu and Yili.
In such circumstances, Yakult remains unmoved, showing great confidence, neither adding new products nor upgrading existing ones, adopting a non-responsive, non-confrontational attitude.
**Such willfulness suggests the product is strong enough?**
**3. Whether the product works or not is unknown**
Yakult claims to improve intestinal flora, but many on Zhihu doubt its effectiveness.
A Discovery documentary a few years ago conducted an experiment: two groups, one drinking high-concentration lactic acid bacteria daily, the other eating high-fiber foods like leeks and celery. After a month, the high-fiber group saw a 20% increase in beneficial gut bacteria, **while the high-concentration lactic acid bacteria group showed no difference from ordinary people, because stomach acid kills over 99% of probiotics** .
Moreover, professionals have stated that **although Yakult's formula and nutritional content contain a standard amount of lactic acid bacteria, there is no research supporting its role in regulating other gut flora** !
**Simply put, its effect on promoting intestinal motility is far less than we imagine!**
Yet, despite being willful, unambitious, and uncertain about its effectiveness, Yakult stands firm in the market.
**In many cities, with coverage less than one percent of competitors, its sales far surpass other products, securing its position as the leader in the low-temperature lactic acid bacteria market.**
Sales rose from 59,000 bottles per day in 2002 to 5.825 million bottles per day in 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 39% over the past 14 years.
It's truly a miracle.
**02**
**The secret to 82 years of unambitious yet always striking later:**
**Perfecting two key points**
A close study of Yakult's corporate history reveals a pattern: **in these 82 years of being unambitious, it has always managed to strike later and win.**
Yakult entered mainland China in 2002, which wasn't an ideal time.
Official data shows that in 2002, larger dairy enterprises completed total industrial output value of 358.3 billion yuan, with the top five (Bright, Yili, Mengniu, Weiwei, and Sanyuan) accounting for nearly half of that.
Also noteworthy is that even in the lactic acid bacteria segment, giants already dominated:
In 1996, Prince Milk emerged, creating a huge category miracle with lactic acid bacteria drinks in the market gap between Yili and Bright, the two pure milk giants.
"In 2004, sales in the Beijing market exceeded 60 million yuan. Meanwhile, Hebei market sales surpassed 100 million yuan. The entire northern market reached 400 million yuan."
These figures indicate that giants had almost carved up the dairy market, leaving little opportunity for newcomers.
**Against this backdrop, how did the 'imported' Yakult strike later and win? Its secret lies in a set of tactics, which can be broken down into two points:**
**1. Sticking to a single product saves significant costs**
Relying on a single product to conquer the market is especially evident after Yakult entered China.
In 2002, Yakult, originally from Japan, entered mainland China after 50 years in Taiwan and Hong Kong. This wasn't a great time.
At the time, the domestic dairy industry generally pursued strategies of full-channel coverage and product proliferation.
For example, Yili's products included room-temperature liquid milk, yogurt, frozen foods, and nearly 100 types of milk beverages with thousands of specifications. Mengniu and Bright did the same. Even Prince Milk, in the lactic acid bacteria field, subdivided into "Sunrise" and "Prince" sub-brands, competing with over 10 specifications of room-temperature lactic acid bacteria drinks.
After entering, Yakult focused solely on promoting its 100ml red-bottled low-temperature lactic acid bacteria drink. By 2008, relying on a few cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, it achieved sales of 400 million yuan, and by 2011, 2 billion yuan!
**Such massive sales data, coupled with its glaring and incongruous weakness—product singularity—quickly drew precise attacks from competitors.**
First, the multi-strain tactic: Yakult has only one probiotic, so competitors added multiple other probiotics. Yakult has 10 billion probiotics per bottle, so competitors labeled theirs: "We have 30 billion probiotics."
Second, targeting Yakult's one-size-fits-all consumer base, competitors adopted a segmentation strategy: elderly, youth, women, men, sub-healthy, and night-owl groups, further targeting specific demographics. In pricing, they also employed a strategy of sticking close and smothering, closely following Yakult's 2.2 yuan price point, setting theirs at 2 yuan or lower...
**The result: by the first quarter of 2015, Yakult's profit growth exceeded 30%, while domestic brands' profit competitiveness generally declined.**
**2. Investing more profits in a self-built direct sales team**
For a long time, there was a well-known rule in the FMCG industry: products don't move until channels are established!
So everyone emphasized speed in channel expansion: fast, fast, fast!
Mengniu took only ten years to spread its products to every village in the country, and Yili took only five years to occupy supermarkets and retail outlets across China.
But Yakult did the opposite. Its first move upon entering was not to build channels and distribute widely, but to create a "direct sales team."
In 1963, Yakult pioneered the "home delivery" service model in Japan. These delivery personnel, often laid-off women or housewives, were called "Yakult Ladies."
Because Yakult's unit price is high, profits are high, and 50% of profits are given as bonuses, their enthusiasm is high.
In the early days, they pushed carts with Yakult in communities for promotions, solving the last-mile delivery problem while also endorsing Yakult through their own reputations.
This direct sales team has always been formidable. Relevant data shows that excluding traditional channels like supermarkets and retail stores, "Yakult Ladies" account for nearly two-thirds of the 28 million bottles sold daily worldwide.
As a result, even today, Yakult only operates in 28 markets, less than one percent of its competitors, yet its sales are not to be underestimated.
**03**
**Conclusion**
The biggest fear in entrepreneurship is not recognizing reality and making decisions on a whim. As an imported product, Yakult successfully carved a niche in the mainland market by recognizing the situation and insisting on "butt decides head" (i.e., letting the situation dictate strategy). This is crucial.
First, Yakult's probiotic technology may not monopolize the market. Second, as an imported product, relying on channels to enter a foreign dairy market already dominated by giants is even harder. At that point, only unconventional tactics can win.
But Yakult still faces challenges ahead. For example, its market share is not high, and with the rise of room-temperature lactic acid bacteria drinks, **how much longer can Yakult, sticking to a single product, remain willful?**
-END-


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671