---
title: "“There Are Categories but No Brands”: Why Is There No Leader in the Fruit Wine Market?"
description: "Fruit wine, which has long struggled to find its place in the Chinese market, has suddenly become popular. Compared with baijiu and beer, fruit wine (excluding wine) has been overlooked, but in recent years its visibility has soared, maintaining an annual growth rate of 15%. According to ECdataway, sales of premixed wine/fruit wine on Alibaba's platforms (Tmall + Taobao) increased by 154% in 2018 and 45% in 2019. However, the industry still faces the problem of \"having categories but no brands,\" with no clear leader emerging."
author: "FBIF"
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published: "2020-05-30"
language: "en"
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# “There Are Categories but No Brands”: Why Is There No Leader in the Fruit Wine Market?

> Fruit wine, which has long struggled to find its place in the Chinese market, has suddenly become popular. Compared with baijiu and beer, fruit wine (excluding wine) has been overlooked, but in recent years its visibility has soared, maintaining an annual growth rate of 15%. According to ECdataway, sales of premixed wine/fruit wine on Alibaba's platforms (Tmall + Taobao) increased by 154% in 2018 and 45% in 2019. However, the industry still faces the problem of "having categories but no brands," with no clear leader emerging.

Fruit wine, which has long struggled to survive in a niche in the Chinese market, has suddenly become popular!
Compared with baijiu and beer, fruit wine (excluding wine) has never been favored by the market: it is not suitable for formal occasions, and it is not as casual as beer for friend gatherings. However, in recent years, the visibility of fruit wine has been rising rapidly, and it has emerged as a new force with an annual growth rate of 15%. According to data from ECdataway, a big data e-commerce agency, sales of the premixed wine/fruit wine category on Alibaba's platforms (Tmall + Taobao) increased by 154% in 2018 compared with 2017, and although growth slowed in 2019, it still reached 45%.
Fruit wine is no longer just the bayberry or mulberry wine in glass jars; it now appears more often on picnic blankets on suburban lawns, at young people's parties, and in the sound of "buy it" in live-streaming rooms.
**The commercialization of fruit wine has been accelerated**, attracting baijiu giants such as Moutai, Wuliangye, and Luzhou Laojiao to enter the market. Luzhou Laojiao's Taohuazui became famous thanks to the hit TV series "Eternal Love" (Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms).
Image source: Luzhou Laojiao Taohuazui official blog
However, the fruit wine industry has always had a problem: **there are categories but no brands**.
In 2013, there was a question on Zhihu: Why is there no leader in the fruit wine market?
Seven years later, this question still plagues the fruit wine industry. The development of fruit wine brands seems not to have kept up with the needs of the consumer market. The baijiu industry has Moutai and Wuliangye, beer has Tsingtao and Snow, but when it comes to fruit wine, it is hard to think of a representative brand.
Is the fruit wine boom a false prosperity or a general trend? What internal and external troubles still exist in the fruit wine industry? With these questions in mind, this article analyzes the fruit wine market.
**-01-** **After years in the "cold palace," why did fruit wine suddenly become popular?**
Although fruit wine has a history of thousands of years in China, and folk winemaking often uses fruits, commercialized fruit wine was once very quiet in the Chinese market and always missed the bandwagon.
It was thought that fruit wine would stay in the "cold palace" forever, but it has become popular again. What exactly has happened in the liquor market?
Let's first look at the changes in people, products, and places in liquor consumption.
**1. People: The profile of liquor consumers is changing**
**1) The "back waves" (younger generation) are stepping onto the stage**
Although the main consumers of alcoholic beverages are still the post-60s and post-70s generations, the post-80s and post-90s have undoubtedly become a new force in consumption with unlimited potential. The "2018 Tmall Online Liquor Consumption Data Report" shows that **the post-90s and post-95s have the fastest growth in average spending per transaction on alcoholic beverages.**
The preferences of the elderly and even the middle-aged are already fixed, making it difficult for new brands to influence their consumption decisions. Young people, on the other hand, no longer aim to compete in drinking capacity; they are willing to try new things and have diverse consumption preferences, giving new categories and brands an opportunity to develop.
In recent years, major liquor companies have noticed this and have tried every means to embrace young people. For example, "youth small liquor" Jiangxiaobai has subverted the traditional concept of baijiu, making it more palatable and milder.
However, the development space for baijiu is limited. According to incomplete statistics from Tsingshan Capital, more than 200 fashionable small liquors have been launched in recent years, but apart from Jiangxiaobai, which has managed to carve out a share under the dominance of traditional strong brands like Moutai and Wuliangye, the others quickly faded after launch. The emergence of atypical baijiu like Jiangxiaobai cannot save the baijiu industry from lacking successors.
The report also shows that **foreign spirits and fruit wine, which are more favored by young people, are "pouring" into consumers' glasses with a sales growth rate of over 50%.**
**2) The rise of female power**
The rise of female power has also brought huge development potential to fruit wine.
According to Boston Consulting Group, China's female consumer market reached a capacity of $4.5 trillion in 2019. Against the backdrop of consumption upgrading, women are more aware of pleasing themselves and show strong purchasing power. Their influence and decision-making power in daily consumer goods often exceed that of men.
The report shows that the proportion of women's spending on alcoholic beverages is on the rise, and the growth rate of average spending per transaction is much higher than that of men. To cater to the rising female group, more and more liquor brands are choosing to enter the market with female customers as their target.
**2. Product: Upgrading of liquor consumption demand**
Based on the analysis of "people," we find that innovation in alcoholic beverages leaning toward young people and women will be the general trend. Following consumers, what trends can we find in liquor consumption demand?
**First, lower alcohol content.** The 2016 report "The Liquor Consumption Revolution Brought by Young Consumers" shows that **young people's alcohol consumption is mainly concentrated in low-alcohol categories.** On the one hand, young people find it hard to adapt to the spicy taste of high-proof liquor; on the other hand, the trend toward health requires young people to choose lower-proof, healthier drinks.
**Second, diversification.** Young people prefer to pursue novelty. In recent years, more fruit-flavored beers and fruit-flavored baijiu have appeared on the market to meet consumers' diverse taste needs. Fruit wine has the inherent advantage of diverse flavors.
**Finally, human touch.** Currently, drinks that can showcase a personal attitude toward life are more favored by young people. Compared with traditional and conservative baijiu and unrestrained beer, fruit wine appears more restrained, gentle, and full of charm.
**3. Place: Changes from planting, purchasing to consumption**
From planting, purchasing to consumption, the "place" of consumers has changed.
**1) Opinion leaders: From wine tasters to mature consumers**
Due to the rise of the "planting" economy (influencer marketing), the channels through which consumers learn about alcoholic beverages have quietly changed. In the baijiu and wine categories, opinion leader guidance is one of the important ways to cultivate consumers; these people are usually professional wine tasters and collectors. Now, it is generally believed that this form has declined in the liquor industry. However, the discourse power of new forms of opinion leaders has risen; these people are closer to ordinary consumers and are mostly "mature consumers" rather than traditional wine tasters. McKinsey research shows that word-of-mouth marketing brought by opinion leaders can generate nearly twice the sales of traditional paid advertising, plus a 35% higher customer retention rate.
**The recovery of fruit wine is largely driven by opinion leaders.** Recently, there has been a trend of homemade fruit wine on self-media. Li Ziqi, a top internet celebrity blogger, often makes fruit wine in her videos, using raspberries, strawberries, yellow peaches... The attractive colors of the fruits make people want to try.
But it is worth noting that "if you don't make it properly, your family will cry" is not just a joke. Therefore, rational consumers will choose to buy rather than make it themselves.
With the recommendations of sharers on platforms like Weibo and Xiaohongshu, as well as self-media such as Aige Chibaole and Zuie Niang, consumers have begun to associate fruit wine with quality of life and rely more on their opinions to make consumption decisions. Therefore, topics like "wine suitable for women" are endless on platforms like Zhihu and Xiaohongshu. In Li Jiaqi's live-streaming room, the domestic brand Meijian green plum wine sold 200,000 bottles.
Image source: Meijian Green Plum Wine official WeChat
**2) Purchase channels: From offline to online**
The channels for purchasing alcoholic beverages have changed. The report shows that online liquor consumption habits are becoming increasingly mature, with the number of online liquor consumers maintaining an annual growth rate of about 42%.
Traditional offline sales channels have high brand concentration and slow iteration, making it difficult for new brands to enter. Online channels, on the other hand, have not yet seen oligopolistic competition, and consumer brand loyalty is lower, leaving huge space for emerging brands.
During Tmall's 55 promotion, fruit wine grew by more than 400%, and plum wine grew by more than 1000%, with outstanding performance, including emerging fruit wine brands such as Meijian and Miss Berry that focus on online channels.
**3) Consumption scenarios: From the protagonist of drinking games to a supporting role at parties; from drinking together to drinking alone**
At young people's parties, to accommodate everyone's tastes and drinking capacity, fruit wine with lower alcohol content is gradually occupying the table. Women's enthusiasm for the "picnic movement" in the Instagram style has also become a new force pushing fruit wine into consumers'视野.
These phenomena reflect changes in party scenarios. On the one hand, **men's willingness to compete in drinking is decreasing**; on the other hand, **women's dominance at parties is becoming stronger**.
In addition, drinks that carry emotional expression are becoming more everyday companions. With the expansion of the single population, young people need to drink alone and enjoy their alone time in a slightly tipsy and comfortable way. Recently, RIO Weixun launched the slogan "One Person's Little Drink" and filmed an advertisement with Zhou Dongyu, showing a young woman's thoughts when she is alone.
Video source: RIO Cocktail official blog
RIO is capturing the need of young people to please themselves. On social platforms, fruit wine often appears in a "one person" posture, with specific scenes such as reading, watching movies, or listening to music. Open a bottle of fruit wine, pour it into a glass, add some ice, and shed fatigue.
**-02-** **The fruit wine trend has arrived, but Chinese brands are still struggling with "internal troubles" and "external threats"**
From the perspective of the product life cycle, fruit wine is in the introduction period, giving fruit wine brands an opportunity to build momentum. But conversely, why has the fruit wine industry only recovered rather than exploded during these years of continuous growth? The reason is that Chinese fruit wine brands are facing internal and external troubles.
**1. Internal troubles**
**1) Uncontrolled quality**
Zhihu answerer huigr pointed out that fruit wine brewing has problems such as difficulty in controlling sweetness and acidity, and difficulty in fermentation and juice extraction. At the same time, the lack of a system of separately cultivated brewing varieties leads to uneven quality of fruit wine.
Because it is not the main business but a "side job," leading liquor companies such as Wuliangye, Moutai, Luzhou Laojiao, and Guyue Longshan have all jumped into the fruit wine industry, but they have not deeply promoted the entire fruit wine industry. In 2015, Moutai Group launched the fruit wine brand "Youmi" with blueberry wine as the main product, which appeared in the hit TV series "Ode to Joy 2" and sold 240 million yuan in the first year, but sales shrank the second year because the taste was not good.
Image source: Pingdingshan Xinhezuo public account
If even big-name liquor companies find it difficult to solve the technical barriers of fruit wine, it goes without saying for other small brands.
**2) Homogeneous products**
On the surface, domestic fruit wine brands on e-commerce channels seem to emerge one after another, but in reality, homogenization is very serious. According to Zhihu answerer Qingzhi, more than 90% of domestic fruit wine is OEM-produced, with little difference.
At the same time, the popularity of "girly" internet-famous fruit wine has led to a large number of imitators. Internet-famous brands have many flavors, but they have not created differentiated products. The uniform style of "small freshness" and "literary" has also caused aesthetic fatigue and confusion in brand recognition.
To stand out from many brands, it is necessary to occupy consumers' minds with a strong signature product. For example, when we mention plum wine, we think of Umenoyado; when we mention baijiu, we think of Moutai and Wuliangye.
**3) Limited positioning**
Internet-famous brands are not lacking in effort; they have not missed any step in researching fermentation technology or increasing brand exposure, but they seem to lack the ambition to become leading brands.
In terms of brand positioning, fruit wine brands often go astray.
Either they cater to niche markets such as ancient style and literary style, emphasizing tradition. But such brands are only suitable for niche markets or as cross-border products to quickly gain attention; they are hard to satisfy the public's aesthetics. To adapt to changes in the consumer market, products need to break away from the image of local specialties.
Or they all position themselves as women's drinking wine, equating fruit wine with women's wine in brand promotion. In the long run, this will inevitably discourage many men who like fruit wine.
Or they promote health and wellness benefits. For example, wolfberry wine Ningxia Red has literally promoted itself as a medicinal wine. Although it gained fame in the early stage, it lacked follow-up momentum and alienated many young consumers.
**2. External threats**
Because the fruit wine industry developed early abroad, many representative categories have been formed. For example, French cider, German Pflaumenwein from Hundertwasser, Kirschlikör cherry wine, Japanese plum wine, and American Green Mist wine.
In recent years, fruit wines from Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States have continuously entered China and gradually occupied consumers' minds. Except for baijiu, consumers believe that foreign wines are more "fragrant" in other categories.
**This mental barrier is the hardest to overcome; it requires long-term product innovation and consumer education across the entire industry to change perceptions.**
**-03-** **"There are categories but no brands": How can fruit wine companies break the deadlock?**
Under internal and external troubles, how should fruit wine companies break the "no brand" deadlock?
We might start from the following three directions.
**1. Product is the foundation**
Blindly pursuing the aura of internet fame can easily lead to losing oneself. **Whether a brand lasts long or is a flash in the pan depends on quality.** Especially for young people who have low loyalty to a single brand, it is even more important to use excellent quality to widen the gap with other brands.
In addition, instead of fighting other brands head-on, **it is better to discover a characteristic category and refine it.** For example, Budaifumei's cloudy plum wine differentiates itself from other plum wines in taste by adding plum pulp and jam to the wine, highlighting the full-bodied texture of the fruit.
Image source: Kaiyun Japanese liquor store
Another example is the British brand H.P. Bulmer's cider brand Strongbow, which accounts for 80% of cider in the UK. On the basis of making good cider, it adds various fruits such as berries and pears to meet consumers' diverse taste needs and achieve different sweetness levels.
Image source: Strongbow
China has many characteristic fruit wine varieties, such as bayberry wine, loquat wine, mulberry wine, and wolfberry wine. If a category can be perfected, there is an opportunity to drive the entire fruit wine industry out of the niche.
**2. Market is the lifeline**
Even good wine fears the depth of the alley; you must learn to go out. Now the "long tail" competition in the fruit wine industry is beginning to emerge. Some internet fruit wine brands, such as Miss Berry, Xiaochongshan, and Zhixun, have laid a certain foundation. They are very good at visual creation, from high-value packaging to graphic design that conforms to young people's aesthetics. At the same time, they are also going out through live streaming and KOL recommendations. In Li Jiaqi's live-streaming room, Miss Berry fruit wine sold more than 50,000 bottles in one night.
Image source: Miss Berry Tmall flagship store
When it comes to going out, Meijian green plum wine is a leader. Relying on the marketing capabilities of Jiangji Distillery, it quickly entered the market. In 2019, it held the "Good Wine Meijian · Douyin Friends Red People's Night" in Chongqing, and the slogan "Long time no see, good wine Meijian" is memorable. This year, Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao have also brought goods for Meijian in their live-streaming rooms. On May 20, Meijian also formed a CP with Liumei (sour plum) and launched many product plays.
Image source: Meijian Green Plum Wine official WeChat
Although the era of traffic supremacy has passed, brands still need to leverage traffic to gain higher attention.
**3. Brand is the soul**
To become an excellent brand, you need appropriate brand positioning.
As mentioned earlier, many fruit wine brands now emphasize the positioning of women's wine, which actually loses differentiation. In fact, the fruit wine category is naturally more popular with women, so emphasizing gender positioning is completely redundant and may even limit brand development.
Bingqing green plum wine, which has completed three rounds of financing in three years, is positioned as "social wine for the new generation of young people," differentiating itself from the consumption scenario. In addition to entering online channels such as JD.com and Tmall, it has also vigorously distributed to offline supermarkets, convenience stores, and catering outlets. To cater to the needs of young people, Bingqing has also launched the "Bingqing · Childhood Sweethearts" series for dating and wedding scenarios, and has co-branded with other brands to create IP-customized products. A single green plum wine can be played in many ways.
Let's look at the tea industry, which has long been troubled by "having categories but no brands." Although Xiaoguan Tea is controversial, the founder's unique brand thinking has indeed made Xiaoguan Tea a very recognizable brand in the tea industry. In the past, consumers associated tea purchases with origin and category, such as Pu'er tea, oolong tea, Tieguanyin, etc. But Xiaoguan Tea chose a different path, not starting from the category, but unifying the weight, packaging, and price of Xiaoguan Tea.
If fruit wine brands can pay more attention to brand building instead of just promoting raw material origins and health benefits, they will have a better chance of breaking the deadlock. Relatively speaking, among emerging brands, Meijian and Bingqing have stronger brand awareness.
**-04-** **Conclusion**
The advantages of fruit wine being healthy and refreshing determine that it has great development space in the future. Lower competitive pressure also provides soil for brands to "grow wildly" and brings more imagination for product innovation.
However, the seemingly stable growth of the fruit wine industry may actually be a dangerous undercurrent. When the industry lacks competitive brands, problems such as lack of product standards and highly homogeneous positioning will emerge.
The current fruit wine industry needs more ambitious brands to lead the industry's development direction.
We see that the "General Technical Requirements for Fruit Wine" will be implemented on October 1, and the fruit wine industry is working toward standardization. Can fruit wine brands seize the opportunity and achieve sustained growth? We will wait and see.
Source: FBIF Food & Beverage Innovation (ID: FoodInnovation)


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