---
title: "Why Can't Wahaha's New Products Win Over Young Consumers?"
description: "Wahaha, once a dominant player in China's beverage market, has struggled to replicate its past successes with new products, as younger consumers gravitate toward trendier brands like Genki Forest. Despite attempts at innovation and brand rejuvenation, the company remains reliant on legacy products and faces significant challenges in finding a new growth curve."
author: "韩滢"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2021-12-03"
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# Why Can't Wahaha's New Products Win Over Young Consumers?

> Wahaha, once a dominant player in China's beverage market, has struggled to replicate its past successes with new products, as younger consumers gravitate toward trendier brands like Genki Forest. Despite attempts at innovation and brand rejuvenation, the company remains reliant on legacy products and faces significant challenges in finding a new growth curve.

Source: Lianxian Insight (ID: lxinsight)
Images from Wahaha's WeChat official account
In the 1950s, a Xinjiang folk song titled "Wahaha" was born in Urumqi, Xinjiang.
Thirty years later, an entrepreneur named Zong Qinghou named a children's nutritional drink "Wahaha."
**The two Wahahas have become childhood memories for two generations.**
Once, from the first hit children's nutritional drink to subsequent products like AD Calcium Milk and Wowaiwai, Wahaha, led by Zong Qinghou, stepped on the pulse of the times at every turn.
But now, looking back at Wahaha's new products, few have made a splash in the market.
Despite the frequent hits in beverage categories like sparkling water, sugar-free drinks, and new-style tea drinks in recent years, Wahaha has missed out on these trends.
Now, Genki Forest's sparkling water, soda water, and milk tea have become the "new favorites" of young people, while Coca-Cola and Pepsi have also launched new products to compete for market share. Yet Wahaha remains stuck in the era of AD Calcium Milk and Nutri-Express.
Image source: Wahaha's WeChat official account
**For a time, the story of Wahaha "creating another Wahaha" has become increasingly difficult to tell, but Wahaha has not given up yet.**
In September this year, Wahaha's "Future Cola" reappeared in the public eye. Back in 1998, positioned as "Chinese people's own cola," Future Cola sparked discussion upon its launch but quickly disappeared from the market.
According to Wahaha's official Weibo, this time Wahaha is using a combination of "cola + national trend + sugar-free" and initiated a topic discussion on "What flavor should Chinese people's cola be?" with 24,000 people participating in the vote.
Future Cola flavor solicitation, image from Wahaha's official Weibo
Whether this return of Future Cola is Wahaha's nth attempt at entrepreneurship is unknown. **But what is certain is that in a beverage market crowded with giants and new products, it will be difficult for Wahaha to win over young consumers.**

**Why Haven't Wahaha's New Products Gone Viral?**
Times have changed.
The generation that once drank AD Calcium Milk has grown up, and Wahaha seems unable to grasp the preferences of today's young people.
**If there is one category that is hottest in the beverage track today, it is undoubtedly sparkling water.** Genki Forest single-handedly stirred up the sparkling water market, attracting new players to enter and old players to cross over. Wahaha has not given up its chance to enter either. **
**In August last year, Wahaha's youth-oriented brand Kellyone launched the sparkling water "Angry Bobo."** Interestingly, from the product name and packaging design, Wahaha's "Angry Bobo" directly benchmarks against Genki Forest and is considered by outsiders to be Wahaha's "experimental field" for its youth-oriented market.
Angry Bobo, image from Kellyone's official website
In terms of sales of Angry Bobo, its celebrity spokesperson Wang Yibo has driven significant sales. According to Jiemian News, before the announcement of the endorsement in May, the monthly sales of a single Angry Bobo link were only over 1,000 bottles. After the endorsement announcement, a 60-fold increase in sales led to Angry Bobo's entire product line selling out.
The contrast before and after suggests that the achievement seems to be attributed to the purchasing power of fans driven by celebrity effect.
According to Lianxian Insight's research, Kellyone was created in 2016 by Zong Fuli, daughter of Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou. Kellyone initially positioned itself in the high-end market, launching customized fruit and vegetable juices priced at 28-48 yuan. It received considerable attention at its inception. However, due to overly idealistic beverage positioning, such as high prices and a shelf life of only seven days, the fruit and vegetable juices have now disappeared from Kellyone's flagship store.
Later, following the popularity of Genki Forest, Kellyone adopted a "follow strategy," launching the more cost-effective low-calorie fruit tea drink "KELLYONE CHACHA," the sugar-free "Tea One Tea," and the sparkling water "Angry Bobo." From market feedback, apart from "Angry Bobo," the other products have made little noise.
According to Kellyone's official website, during this year's 618 shopping festival, Kellyone ranked second in Tmall's sparkling water transaction rankings. Kellyone only has one sparkling water product, Angry Bobo.
In contrast, from Kellyone's official flagship store, as of the time of writing, the other two products—KELLYONE CHACHA has over 200 buyers, and Tea One Tea has only 82 buyers.
**Following the health concept, the trend of meal replacement and fat reduction has surged.** In July this year, Wahaha launched "Qingnai," a new brand positioned in the health field. The brand currently has four products: two sugar-free meal replacement shakes, one hyaluronic acid sparkling water, and one prune plant enzyme.
But in the meal replacement track, new brands like WonderLab, Smeal, and fit8 have already captured the market and invested heavily in marketing and branding. Wahaha clearly lacks competitiveness.
Lianxian Insight observed that Qingnai's hyaluronic acid sparkling water has a maximum monthly sales of 1,000+ per link in its Tmall flagship store, while the meal replacement shake has only 100+ buyers.
**In terms of the speed of product innovation, Wahaha is not lagging behind. But why can't it capture the "stomachs" of young people?**
Generally speaking, there are two ways of product iteration: one is the development of new products, and the other is the upgrade of old products.
**Zong Qinghou once frankly admitted in an interview on CCTV's "Dialogue" program that the reason for Wahaha's decline is a lack of innovation.**
Looking back at the products Wahaha has launched, they seem to have been "copied and imitated." The earliest hit, "Children's Nutritional Drink," benchmarked against Guangzhou Taiyangshen; then AD Calcium Milk was an upgraded product of Robust's calcium milk; and the best-selling Nutri-Express was modeled after Xiaoyangren's Miaolian.
Over the years, Wahaha has not escaped the cycle of "following trends." When Coca-Cola and Pepsi dominated the Chinese market, Wahaha launched "Future Cola." When Genki Forest led a new consumer market, Wahaha launched "Angry Bobo." **The obvious phenomenon is that Wahaha, always a step behind others, lacks internal innovation and is in a passive follow strategy.**
On the other hand, in upgrading old products, Wahaha is also "half a beat slow." In the low-sugar trend, last year, Nutri-Express low-sugar yogurt was launched. In contrast, the concept of low-sugar and sugar-free yogurt had already been popularized by brands like Jane and Junlebao in 2018, making it difficult for Wahaha to differentiate in taste.
In the low-sugar beverage category, this year Wahaha launched the low-sugar version of Nutri-Express and the half-sugar version of Youyou Milk Tea. Last year, Genki Forest's low-sugar and low-fat milk tea had already taken the lead in the market.
**Insufficient innovation, the inability to extend the advantages of old products, and the continuous emergence of similar new products have made it difficult for Wahaha's new products to stand out.**
More critically, after launching a brand, how to tell a good brand story is also a lesson Wahaha needs to learn, which is a common problem for traditional enterprises. Since the younger generation, Zong Fuli, joined the management of the company, Wahaha has also shown visible "youthfulness."
For example, Wahaha became a partner of the LPL, China's official League of Legends tournament, and collaborated with many trendy toys, launching many co-branded products. In May last year, Wahaha partnered with Pop Mart to launch the industry's first "blind water."
The first batch of 1,000 boxes of "blind water" sold out within 5 minutes. Subsequently, the co-branded "Underage Ice Cream" with Zhong Xuegao and the "Underage Academy" with Bilibili were new attempts at Wahaha's youth-oriented strategy.
Underage Ice Cream, image from Zhong Xuegao's official Weibo
It cannot be ignored that these attempts have a sense of "much ado about nothing" and have not brought about fundamental changes for Wahaha. Zong Qinghou also said in an interview, "It's lively, but it hasn't directly reflected in sales."
**For beverage products, channels are also a key link that cannot be ignored.** Looking at the entire retail industry, offline traditional channels are the basic market for Chinese beverage sales. According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2019, traditional channels accounted for 44.05% of China's soft drink industry, while modern channels (supermarkets, chain convenience stores), catering channels, e-commerce channels, and other channels accounted for only 22.33%, 14.31%, 6.14%, and 13.16%, respectively.
Wahaha's "joint sales system" dealer model is a standout in traditional channel competition. According to Wahaha's official website, Wahaha currently has over 7,000 dealers and over 100,000 wholesalers. From this perspective, with years of dealer experience, Wahaha can quickly bring products to every street and every convenience store, making offline channels Wahaha's advantage against new brands.
But water can carry a boat and also overturn it. When new brands attack on multiple fronts such as branding, marketing, and both online and offline channels, Wahaha's old advantages are no longer prominent, Wahaha's products are increasingly difficult to sell, and the once-strong sales system is also being challenged.
Zong Fuli once stated at the 2019 Zhejiang Business Breaker Conference, "All brands need to understand what consumers think and value, and can no longer rely on the omnichannel sales model as in the past. Everything a company does now needs to be transformed from the consumer's perspective."
**But as consumers change generation after generation, Wahaha, which has been constantly trying new products, still leaves the market with the impression of being stuck in the era of "AD Calcium Milk."**

**Always "Living on Past Glories," Wahaha Is Also Anxious**
In the last century, there were not many entrepreneurs who started business at the age of 40 and succeeded. Wahaha's Zong Qinghou, Huawei's Ren Zhengfei, and Lenovo's Liu Chuanzhi are among the few representatives.
34 years ago, 42-year-old Zong Qinghou personally hung up the sign "Shangcheng District School-run Enterprise Distribution Department" at 160 Qingtai Street in Hangzhou, and a bottle of "Children's Nutritional Drink" came into being.
**"Drink Wahaha, eat with a good appetite."** One year after the success of the first product, Wahaha merged the state-owned Hangzhou Canned Food Factory, which had losses of over 40 million yuan, and then established the Wahaha Group, with an output value exceeding 200 million yuan that year.
Entering the 21st century, Wahaha aggressively seized market share. **In 2003, revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time, and ten years later it increased to 78.3 billion yuan.** In 2012, Zong Qinghou topped the Forbes China Rich List with assets of 63 billion yuan. These figures all indicate that Wahaha was once a favorite of the post-80s and post-90s generation.
Subsequently, Wahaha successively developed classic products such as AD Calcium Milk, Eight Treasure Porridge, Nutri-Express, and Wowaiwai, and the prototype of a "beverage empire" gradually emerged. Among them, AD Calcium Milk, Nutri-Express, and Wowaiwai were the three carriages driving Wahaha's rapid growth.
Image source: Wahaha's official website
According to China Economic Net, in the past three years, sales of Wahaha AD Calcium Milk have maintained double-digit growth annually. In 2018, annual sales of Wahaha AD Calcium Milk exceeded 100 million boxes. Meanwhile, in 2021, sales of Nutri-Express showed double-digit growth.
**To this day, Wahaha still relies on these classic products to support half of its business.**
It should be noted that the food and beverage industry inherently has a strong dependence on hit products. But over-reliance on a single product is a major taboo for players in the consumer sector. According to Wahaha's official website, in 2013, Nutri-Express, Wahaha Purified Water, and Wowaiwai together supported "half the sky" of Wahaha's revenue, with Nutri-Express alone contributing over 20 billion yuan.
**Wahaha, which has been "living on past glories," is suffering from "midlife anxiety" in the face of formidable competitors.**
According to the "2021 China Top 500 Private Enterprises List" released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Wahaha's revenue in 2020 was 43.98 billion yuan, and in 2019 it was 46.44 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 5.29%. Compared to the peak revenue of 78.28 billion yuan in 2013, it has shrunk by over 30 billion yuan. On September 25, in the 2021 China Top 500 Private Enterprises List, Wahaha ranked 227th, while last year it was 174th, and ten years ago, Wahaha ranked eighth.
In addition, the decline in the food and beverage market has also led to more "bearish talk" about Wahaha. According to Euromonitor data, in 2020, the top three companies in the soft drink industry by market share were Coca-Cola (mainly carbonated beverages), Nongfu Spring (mainly packaged drinking water), and Ting Hsin (mainly tea beverages), with market shares of 9.3%, 8.4%, and 5.8%, respectively. Wahaha's market share was only 2.1%, lower than JDB and Uni-President.
With old rivals attacking from the front and new brands chasing from behind, new brands led by Genki Forest are squeezing Wahaha's new products. Taking Nutri-Express as an example, in Wahaha's official flagship store, the low-sugar version of Nutri-Express has only 500+ buyers; another low-sugar and low-fat version of Youyou Milk Tea has only 47 buyers. In Genki Forest's official flagship store, the low-sugar and low-fat milk tea has over 5,000 buyers.
**Under such a stark contrast, even if the appeal of Wahaha's old products remains, over time, young people's attention will be captured by more brands.**
In the food and beverage track, it is important to seize new trends and create new hit products. Wahaha's early success was due to both the product strength at that time and the external environment of a "blue ocean" market.
Now, for Wahaha, after Nutri-Express, Wahaha has not launched another "hit product" of the same magnitude, still relying on the "old three" to live on past glories.
In the fiercely competitive beverage market, Wahaha's anxiety is visible, but the goal of "creating another Wahaha" is getting further and further away.

**Wahaha Struggles to Find a Second Growth Curve**
**Facing a "midlife crisis," it is not easy for Wahaha to find a second growth curve.**
Perhaps aware of the bottleneck in its main business, Wahaha started trying multiple tracks early on.
In 2002, Wahaha chose to enter the children's clothing industry. At that time, Wahaha stated that it would become the "number one brand in the domestic children's clothing industry" within two to three years. But it turned out that beverages and children's clothing are two completely different industries, and the game rule in the children's clothing industry is to grasp fashion trends. Before long, the goal of opening 2,000 specialty stores nationwide was not achieved, and Wahaha disappeared from the children's clothing industry.
**Two years later, Wahaha's "Da Chu Yi" instant noodles landed in foreign markets, with the same US agent as Master Kong.** Shortly after, to promote "Da Chu Yi" domestically, Wahaha established a market expansion department internally.
But the market environment at that time was that the domestic instant noodle market had already formed a "tripod" pattern of Uni-President, Master Kong, and Hualong, and the voice of Wahaha's "Da Chu Yi" instant noodles was extremely weak, and it has since disappeared.
Despite unsuccessful attempts in other tracks, around 2010, Wahaha itself reached its heyday, with annual sales reaching 54.9 billion yuan that year.
**At that time, Zong Qinghou made bold remarks to "create another Wahaha and achieve annual sales revenue of 100 billion yuan within three years."** To achieve this goal, Wahaha subsequently made attempts in multiple different tracks.
In 2011, Zong Qinghou, who had explicitly said he would not enter real estate, publicly stated that he planned to invest his billions of cash in commercial real estate and mining.
Subsequently, Wahaha, together with some dealers in Zhejiang and Hunan provinces, established Wahaha Commercial Co., Ltd. through fundraising and shareholding, with an initial investment of 1.7 billion yuan, mainly invested in a mall selling affordable European luxury goods, "Waou Mall," with the goal of listing within five years.
According to Lianxian Insight's research, the mall was later renamed "Wahaha Boutique Mall" and was redesigned and renovated by Wahaha. According to Times Weekly, in 2014, Wahaha was accused of owing more than 10 million yuan in rent to the mall's owner, Zheou Real Estate, and Wahaha fell into another controversy. In this way, Wahaha paid a lot of "tuition" in the highly speculative real estate sector.
Two years later, Wahaha set its sights on the baijiu track. At that time, Wahaha Group signed a baijiu strategic investment agreement with the Renhuai Municipal Government in Guizhou Province, with Wahaha investing 15 billion yuan, directly managed by Zong Qinghou. According to Times Weekly, Wahaha held 80% and Jinjiang Distillery held 20%, and together they launched a sauce-flavored baijiu with the origin of Maotai Town, Guizhou, called "Lingjiang Guojiu."
When discussing the prospects of Wahaha's baijiu, Cui Zisan, a researcher at the China Brand Research Institute, told Times Weekly in an interview, "We have never heard of Jinjiang Distillery, and I am not optimistic about Wahaha's baijiu prospects."
In addition, from the market environment at that time, affected by economic downturn and restrictions on "three public consumptions," baijiu was in a downturn. Five years later, this baijiu was acquired by Hebei Hualin Group, and Wahaha exited the baijiu track.
**Due to factors such as Wahaha's misjudgment of the market and blind entry into new fields, after investing a lot of financial and material resources, multiple projects went "in the opposite direction" from the original vision.** Ultimately, these businesses all ended in failure and disappeared from Wahaha's territory.
Although Wahaha's new business attempts have consistently ended in failure, this does not seem to have dampened Wahaha's pace in seeking a second curve.
Last year, Zong Qinghou announced that Wahaha would enter e-commerce, and Wahaha began trying new businesses again. Subsequently, Zong Qinghou successively built four e-commerce platforms, including a health product e-commerce brand platform, a food and beverage platform, a cross-border e-commerce platform, and a Habao Amusement Park platform.
At the same time, 75-year-old Zong Qinghou also started his first live-streaming session in his life to promote Wahaha's upcoming health product e-commerce platform for middle-aged and elderly people. **Interestingly, Zong Qinghou was an opponent of "e-commerce theory" in his early years, but the current reality shows that online sales is a channel that consumer goods must capture.**
Not only re-examining e-commerce, but against the backdrop of a sluggish main business, Wahaha entered the new-style tea drink track last year. It must be admitted that new tea drinks have become an important means for traditional beverages to rejuvenate. On the other hand, Wahaha is a "time-honored brand" with a 43-year history, and when Wahaha milk tea was launched, it played the "nostalgia card." In July last year, Wahaha's first milk tea direct-sale store opened in Guangzhou, with Zong Qinghou personally attending to support it.
Wahaha milk tea store, image from Wahaha milk tea's official Weibo
**Just when the market was full of expectations, Wahaha milk tea stores fell into a "franchisee rights protection" controversy, exposing problems such as false investment promotion and store losses.** Undoubtedly, this controversy damaged the brand image of the not-yet-stable Wahaha milk tea, making its future even more uncertain.
At the same time, the menu of Wahaha milk tea is mostly based on "AD Calcium Milk," with no obvious innovation. In the fiercely competitive new tea drink market, homogenization is already very obvious. If there is no hit product that captures consumers' minds, Wahaha milk tea's survival space is limited.
Having tried multiple tracks, Wahaha has still not created a second "Wahaha" to this day.
**Wahaha wants to be younger, and young people also want products that are more innovative and attractive.** In the consumer track, there seems to be no eternal winner. Consumers are always changing, and players are always on the road to exploring new consumption opportunities. Wahaha still needs to continue moving forward in exploration.
**Are you "watching" me?**


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