---
title: "Who Won More Chinese Consumers This Year?"
description: "P&G, Yili, and Mengniu hold the top three spots, with Nongfu Spring entering the list for the first time. According to the latest research, in the 52 weeks ending October 7, 2016, 22 FMCG companies had over 100 million urban buying households, 12 of which were Chinese companies. Kantar Worldpanel data shows that P&G remains the company with the most consumers in China, attracting 154 million urban households over the past year, followed by Yili and Mengniu (including Yashili). Their household penetration rates are 93.4%, 88.2%, and 88.1%, respectively."
author: "凯度消费者指数"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2016-12-01"
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---

# Who Won More Chinese Consumers This Year?

> P&G, Yili, and Mengniu hold the top three spots, with Nongfu Spring entering the list for the first time. According to the latest research, in the 52 weeks ending October 7, 2016, 22 FMCG companies had over 100 million urban buying households, 12 of which were Chinese companies. Kantar Worldpanel data shows that P&G remains the company with the most consumers in China, attracting 154 million urban households over the past year, followed by Yili and Mengniu (including Yashili). Their household penetration rates are 93.4%, 88.2%, and 88.1%, respectively.

**P&G, Yili, and Mengniu hold the top three spots, with Nongfu Spring entering the list for the first time.**
Latest research shows that in the 52 weeks ending October 7, 2016, **22 FMCG companies had over 100 million urban buying households, 12 of which were Chinese companies**. According to Kantar Worldpanel data, P&G remains the company with the most consumers in China, attracting 154 million urban households over the past year. Yili and Mengniu (including Yashili) follow closely. The household penetration rates of these three companies are 93.4%, 88.2%, and 88.1%, respectively. **Beverage giant Nongfu Spring entered the list for the first time, becoming the company with the fastest growth in consumer base.**
FMCG companies covering over 100 million households in urban China
2016 Top 100 Million Household Ranking
**Acquiring new consumers is key to FMCG growth**, and some market leaders in the Chinese market over the past 12 months have continued to expand their already substantial buying household base. Among them, Chinese companies, despite already having broad consumer coverage, have not slowed down in recruiting new consumers. For example, Nongfu Spring (added 8.1 million urban households), Haitian (added 5.7 million households), Hengan and Nice Group (each added 4.6 million households), Yili (added 4.3 million households), and Mengniu (added 3.4 million households). However, only P&G has reached more than 90% of urban households in China. Therefore, for ambitious companies, there is still room to expand their consumer base.
**Winning Through Consumption Upgrade**
Amid the trends of market evolution and slowing growth in the FMCG market, competition among brands to win consumers has intensified. With increasing difficulty in driving sales volume growth, brands must innovate to win over young consumers and affluent middle-class consumers. They need to launch high-priced, high-quality products and entirely new categories to reach these new consumer segments.
**Nongfu Spring's performance is particularly outstanding, achieving 8.7% growth in buying households over the past year, largely thanks to its ready-to-drink tea brand, Chabi**. Despite being priced 60% higher than the category average, Chabi attracted 9.4% of consumers within six months of launch. Its novel brand name, aesthetically pleasing packaging, and innovative flavor (peach oolong), along with endorsement by the popular Korean boy band BIGBANG, attracted young consumers. **In addition to the ready-to-drink tea category, Nongfu Spring also added 10 million urban buying households through the strong momentum of packaged water growth.**
**In the personal care and home care categories, the three categories of laundry detergent, facial skincare, and cosmetics continue to perform well**. In 2016, Nice Group added 4.6 million new buying households, with its Chaoneng laundry detergent making a significant contribution. Hengan Group's main categories, sanitary napkins and toilet paper, steadily increased consumers, while the emerging category of kitchen paper added over 1.2 million urban households.
**Balancing Different City Tiers**
Driven by China's urbanization process, lower-tier cities remain an important growth engine for FMCG companies to gain consumers. **Among the 22 FMCG companies on this year's list, 10 companies saw faster consumer growth in lower-tier cities than in upper-tier cities**. In fact, as competition for consumers in lower-tier cities intensifies, we find that some leading brands have seen their consumer base in lower-tier cities decline.
At the same time, **some Chinese companies are also making inroads in upper-tier markets, winning more consumers. By launching products that appeal more to consumers in large cities**, Hengan Group (added 1.4 million households) and Nongfu Spring (added 2.5 million households) achieved rapid expansion in upper-tier cities. The commonality among these companies with significant penetration growth over the past 12 months is that they seized growth opportunities and balanced growth across different city tiers.
**Attracting Consumers Through E-commerce Channels**
B2C e-commerce platforms, such as Tmall Supermarket and JD.com, have attracted a large number of shoppers over the past few years through category expansion and product mix adjustments. **Kantar Worldpanel research shows that in the past 12 months, 52% of Chinese urban households purchased FMCG products through e-commerce channels, with growth far outpacing physical channels**. Each e-commerce promotional event, especially the annual Double 11, has a significant effect on e-commerce penetration. Facing growth challenges in modern trade channels such as hypermarkets and supermarkets, FMCG companies are eager to expand their consumer base in e-commerce channels.
Top 10 companies with the fastest consumer growth in e-commerce channels
2016 E-commerce Fastest Growing Companies
Kantar Worldpanel research found that over the past year, a total of 39 million urban households purchased products from these 22 companies through e-commerce channels. P&G attracted 15 million urban households to buy its products online, far surpassing competitors. **Mengniu, Yili, and Orion are the fastest-growing companies in terms of consumer base in e-commerce channels**. For most companies, e-commerce's contribution to attracting entirely new consumers remains limited. The research found that Colgate is the company among these 22 that attracted the most new consumers through e-commerce, with 1.1 million urban households purchasing only its products through e-commerce channels in the past 12 months.
> In the food and beverage industry, Yili, Mengniu (including Yashili), and Nestlé rank in the top three. Their household penetration rates are 88.2%, 88.1%, and 83.7%, respectively. Beverage giant Nongfu Spring entered the list for the first time, becoming the company with the fastest growth in consumer base.
Jason Yu, General Manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, said: "Acquiring new consumers is key to FMCG growth, and some market leaders in the Chinese market over the past 12 months have continued to expand their already substantial buying household base." Among them, Chinese companies, despite already having broad consumer coverage, have not slowed down in recruiting new consumers. For example, Nongfu Spring (added 8.1 million urban households), Haitian (added 5.7 million households), Yili (added 4.3 million households), and Mengniu (added 3.4 million households). However, in the Chinese market, only P&G has reached more than 90% of urban households. Therefore, for ambitious companies, there is still room to expand their consumer base.
Appendix: 2016 Food and Beverage Brands with Over 100 Million Household Coverage in China
**Source: Kantar**
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