---
title: "Why Can't Chinese Companies Create Long-Lived Carbonated Soft Drink Brands?"
description: "This article explores why Chinese carbonated soft drink brands have failed to endure, examining the cases of Tianfu Cola, Future Cola, and Nongfu Spring's attempts. It argues that factors such as trusting foreign capital, brand positioning mistakes, and changing consumer preferences have contributed to their decline, questioning whether it is even necessary for Chinese companies to create such brands."
author: "湾区陈浩南"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-05-13"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/why-can-t-chinese-companies-create-long-lived-carbonated-soft-drink-bran-4a95c33a/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/why-can-t-chinese-companies-create-long-lived-carbonated-soft-drink-bran-4a95c33a.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9uI4m16e8Ncm3lELe_Ol2w"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E5%81%9A%E4%B8%8D%E5%87%BA%E6%B4%BB%E5%BE%97%E4%B9%85%E7%9A%84%E7%A2%B3%E9%85%B8%E9%A5%AE%E6%96%99%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C-4a95c33a.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/why-can-t-chinese-companies-create-long-lived-carbonated-soft-drink-bran-4a95c33a/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Why Can't Chinese Companies Create Long-Lived Carbonated Soft Drink Brands?

> This article explores why Chinese carbonated soft drink brands have failed to endure, examining the cases of Tianfu Cola, Future Cola, and Nongfu Spring's attempts. It argues that factors such as trusting foreign capital, brand positioning mistakes, and changing consumer preferences have contributed to their decline, questioning whether it is even necessary for Chinese companies to create such brands.

“In the height of summer, a large wooden barrel filled with ice hides many Shanhaiguan sodas. As the bottle cap is suddenly opened, a chill instantly spreads. The drink is icy and crisp, with a strong kick, hard to finish in one gulp. The hand holding the bottle feels strangely numb, and the scalp tingles and swells.”
This passage, written by Tianjin author Zhang Yi in his work “1990,” vividly captures the thirst-quenching and heat-relieving qualities of carbonated drinks.
Because carbonated drinks taste great and can make people feel happy, most Chinese people have fond memories of them.
Do you still remember “Tianfu Cola” from the 1980s? That cola with a faint herbal flavor was a memory for a generation.
Do you remember “Future Cola”? With the slogan “Chinese people's own cola,” it would sell out immediately upon arrival at beverage shops in rural areas.
These brands, which accompanied the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, gradually disappeared over time, vanishing without a trace.
Meanwhile, China's beverage market experienced a boom, with local carbonated drinks quickly placed on shelves and just as quickly removed, while Coca-Cola and Pepsi remained in prominent positions.
These puzzling phenomena form the basis of this article, in which we will ask: **“Why can't Chinese companies create long-lived carbonated soft drink brands?”**
**Trusting Foreign Capital,**
**Tianfu Cola Misses Its Chance**
“Soaking goji berries in a cola bottle” is a joke under the trend of pseudo-health.
But in the last century, a cola brand with a traditional Chinese medicine formula actually existed—Tianfu Cola.
It was jointly developed by Chongqing Beverage Factory and the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the 1980s. The formula contained natural herbal ingredients, a result of the institute's research, which was said to effectively resist aflatoxin.
With its unique taste and certain health benefits, Tianfu Cola quickly became popular.
Reports show that after its official launch in 1981, Tianfu Cola was well received. In 1985, when a national leader inspected Chongqing, he happened to taste the cola and praised it highly.
Image source: cq.leju.com/news
Soon after, following strict inspection by the Government Offices Administration of the State Council, Tianfu Cola was designated as a state banquet beverage, becoming a “famous drink of a generation.”
**By 1988, Tianfu Cola held 75% of the Chinese cola market share, with output value reaching 300 million yuan.** Even in 1990, through the agency of Japan's Kazama Corporation, Tianfu Cola expanded its reach to the birthplace of cola—the United States.
This was an unprecedented height for a Chinese beverage, and countless Chinese people were proud of it. But no one expected that just a few years later, it would rapidly fall into decline and gradually disappear from the market.
There are many theories about the decline of Tianfu Cola, but when looking at contemporary commentary, they all point to one company: PepsiCo.
In 1994, Tianfu Cola announced a joint venture with PepsiCo.
In the early 1990s, China's economic environment had strict regulations on foreign investment, and the vast Chinese consumer market was like a piece of fat attracting multinational companies, including PepsiCo.
To find a breakthrough into the Chinese market, forming a joint venture with a Chinese brand was the best form of cooperation.
PepsiCo chose Tianfu Cola, nominally under the banner of supporting it.
**After the joint venture, PepsiCo legitimately took over Tianfu Cola's nationwide affiliated factories and sales network, while Tianfu Cola began to suffer huge losses.**
The originally planned production volume of at least 50% for Tianfu Cola was gradually reduced, and PepsiCo took the opportunity to rise.
After continuous losses and production cuts, Tianfu Cola gradually disappeared from the Chinese market.
Due to a lack of sound business experience and risk prevention awareness, Tianfu Cola was strangled by capital in its best years, briefly forming a duopoly of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the Chinese market.
But a new challenger was quietly watching all this, and soon it would enter the market as a dark horse.
**Brand Positioning Mistakes,**
**Future Cola Loses the Urban Market**
“Future Cola – Chinese people's own cola!”
This slogan, full of national pride, was proposed by a company in Hangzhou, whose founder, Zong Qinghou, was known for playing the “national card.”
**During the 1998 World Cup, Wahaha officially launched “Future Cola.” Under the then carbonated drink market situation of “flooding seven armies,” it became an instant hit, reaching a peak market share of 7% and annual sales of nearly 3 billion yuan,** forming a tripartite market pattern with Coca-Cola and Pepsi that lasted for four to five years.
At its inception, Future Cola raised the banner of national pride and continuously invested in media advertising with high-frequency bombardment. This was not a bad move for the fledgling Future Cola, fully leveraging national sentiment to attract media and public attention.
Moreover, Wahaha initially targeted the rural market, where Coca-Cola and Pepsi were relatively weak, as the main market for Future Cola. This decision gave Future Cola a significant advantage in the rural battlefield.
However, when Future Cola, which had long focused on the rural market, wanted to “enter the cities,” it hit a bottleneck.
Image source: ctoutiao.com
This is related to “cola culture.” From its inception, cola has been positioned as a beverage representing youth, vitality, and fashion, with its target consumer group being the young generation that challenges tradition and expresses individuality.
Future Cola's high-profile slogan “Chinese people's own cola” was undoubtedly an ignorant move that failed to recognize the essence of cola culture.
While Future Cola could survive in the rural market without cola culture, this positioning was undoubtedly wrong when moving to the urban market.
At the same time, a narrow nationalist image gave open-minded urban young consumers a negative impression of conservatism and backwardness.
Furthermore, Future Cola's appearance design followed Coca-Cola's red style, giving a counterfeit impression, and its low price further conveyed that it was far inferior to Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Many consumers defined Future Cola as a “lowbrow” beverage.
**As a dark horse that broke into the carbonated drink market, Future Cola was indeed popular for a time, but its lack of brand value leadership led to a gradual shrinking market, and it could no longer regain its former glory.**
**Consumption Upgrade,**
**Nongfu Spring's “Heresy”**
Nongfu Spring, known for its “slightly sweet” water, has never given up its ambition to make carbonated drinks.
On May 8, a Nongfu Spring spokesperson revealed that a new carbonated drink product was about to hit the market.
This is not a first attempt; in fact, over the past decade or so, Nongfu Spring has endured many “hardships” in the carbonated drink field.
In 2005, Nongfu Qi Cha (Sparkling Tea) was launched,主打“茶饮+含汽” (tea drink + carbonation), attempting to “catch all” consumers of all ages (those who love tea and those who love carbonated drinks). The market feedback, however, was “neither grandma likes it nor uncle loves it.”
In 2010, Nongfu Spring launched another sparkling tea beverage—TOT Soda Black Tea. Upon its release, evaluations were polarized. Its taste was not widely accepted, and it was doomed to be a niche beverage. As a result, two years later, TOT Soda Black Tea exited the market.
In 2018, Nongfu Spring launched a new “Bubble Tea,” claiming that the product contains 10% fruit juice, blends high-quality black and green tea, and combines the sweetness of fruit juice, the fragrance of tea, and the coolness of carbonation. It is positioned for the younger, trendier post-90s and post-00s consumer groups.
Image source: dy.163.com
Currently, the market response has been lukewarm.
An industry practitioner analyzed that the “unhealthy” image of carbonated drinks is deeply ingrained, and “Bubble Tea” is unlikely to escape this stereotype. Moreover, the health appeal of “Bubble Tea” remains unclear, and the prominent label “fruit juice carbonated tea drink” on the packaging might scare off some consumers.
In fact, in recent years, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have seen declining global sales. Data shows that in 2017, Coca-Cola's net profit fell by 81% year-on-year, and Pepsi's net profit also fell by 23% year-on-year.
In such an environment, let's return to the question at the beginning of the article: Why can't Chinese companies create long-lived carbonated soft drink brands?
The answer to that might be completed with another question.
“Is it still necessary for Chinese companies to create carbonated soft drink brands?”
Source: Finance Without Taboos (ID: caijwj)
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once the tip is adopted.
**China FMCG + Internet Professional New Media**
**Committed to FMCG manufacturer and distributor transformation and channel digital solutions**


---

## 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