---
title: "Zong Fuli's Ongoing War"
description: "Recently, Hangzhou Wahaha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Wahaha Lewei Food Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Wahaha Hongzhen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes, with Zong Qinghou stepping down as legal representative and chairman, replaced by Zong Fuli as director and Zhu Lidan as legal representative and manager, along with other personnel changes. Additionally, Zong Qinghou has recently resigned from positions in several Wahaha subsidiaries, including Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Food Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Beverage Co., Ltd., and Nanjing Wahaha Hongzhen Drinking Water Co., Ltd., among others."
author: "路世明"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-11-18"
language: "en"
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---

# Zong Fuli's Ongoing War

> Recently, Hangzhou Wahaha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Wahaha Lewei Food Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Wahaha Hongzhen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes, with Zong Qinghou stepping down as legal representative and chairman, replaced by Zong Fuli as director and Zhu Lidan as legal representative and manager, along with other personnel changes. Additionally, Zong Qinghou has recently resigned from positions in several Wahaha subsidiaries, including Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Food Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Beverage Co., Ltd., and Nanjing Wahaha Hongzhen Drinking Water Co., Ltd., among others.

Recently, Hangzhou Wahaha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Wahaha Lewei Food Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Wahaha Hongzhen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes, with Zong Qinghou stepping down as legal representative and chairman of the above companies, all replaced by Zong Fuli as director, and Zhu Lidan as legal representative and manager, along with multiple key personnel changes. Additionally, Zong Qinghou has recently resigned from positions in several Wahaha subsidiaries, including Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Food Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wahaha Changsheng Beverage Co., Ltd., and Nanjing Wahaha Hongzhen Drinking Water Co., Ltd. Earlier, as the new leader of Wahaha, Zong Fuli also delivered her first report card after taking the helm—**"aligning with the performance scale of a decade ago."** Of course, taking over power is only the first step; greater challenges await Zong Fuli's answers. Especially in the current extremely "brutal" market environment, how to keep Wahaha in a leading position will be the most critical issue for Zong Fuli to consider. It is said that the disciple surpasses the master; where will Wahaha go under Zong Fuli's full control?

**A Report Card That Cannot Prove "Self-Worth"** On November 7, Hangzhou Wahaha Group held its 2024 National Sales Work Summary and Commendation Conference in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. During the meeting, Zong Fuli, Chairman and General Manager of Wahaha Group, summarized that they had successfully aligned with the performance scale of a decade ago. Additionally, this year, Wahaha distributed nearly 100 million yuan in rewards to distributors with outstanding performance growth, and the overall income of Wahaha sales personnel increased by 30%.

Although it is a vague statement, based on Wahaha's historical sales data, this year's "achievement" is not hard to guess. Wahaha's peak performance was in 2013, when annual revenue reached 78.279 billion yuan. In 2014, revenue was 72.043 billion yuan, the second-best performance in history. However, Wahaha subsequently experienced a bumpy decade, with performance hovering around 46 billion yuan from 2015 to 2020, only returning above 50 billion in 2021. From this, it is not difficult to infer that **this year's revenue is approximately 70 billion yuan or more.** Can Zong Fuli really possess such commercial talent to bring about a nearly 20 billion increase in less than half a year? The answer is clearly no. In fact, due to Zong Qinghou's death, the market once saw a wave of nostalgia and pursuit for the Wahaha brand, leading to a temporary rise in sales. According to Feigua Data, in March this year, Wahaha's sales on Douyin surged, with monthly sales reaching 75 million to 100 million yuan, whereas in February, sales on that channel were only one-tenth of that. In other words, 700 billion is not Zong Fuli's "credit," but merely a product of consumer sentiment. It is worth mentioning that in the face of the "torrential traffic," Zong Fuli also tried to seize the opportunity to retain customers. For example, a letter titled "A Letter to All Sales Personnel" from Wahaha circulated online, mentioning that Wahaha had received unprecedented attention, consumers across the country began to snap up Wahaha products, and supermarket channels and terminals were actively stocking up, hoping all sales personnel would fight this sales battle well. The letter also stated that Wahaha had introduced the most favorable deposit reward policy, launched the "Wahaha invites you to drink water" promotional activity, mobilized all personnel to form a terminal distribution突击 project team, hoping to achieve new breakthroughs in sales performance. But before Wahaha could publicly respond, the traffic had already faded. The high growth in Wahaha sales lasted only half a month, with sales dropping to around 200,000 yuan by March 18, a figure that remained until May, a 90% decrease from the peak. **Although it failed to catch the torrential traffic, on the bright side, Zong Fuli emerged as the ultimate winner in Wahaha's half-year internal power struggle.**

**Despite Holding Power, Troubles Persist** Following Zong Qinghou's death, Wahaha fell into unprecedented internal strife. In July, a letter signed by Zong Fuli titled "Letter to All Employees of Wahaha Group" suddenly went viral online, mentioning that Zong Fuli had decided to resign as Vice Chairman and General Manager of Wahaha Group and would no longer participate in management. Just as everyone thought Zong Fuli would lose control of Wahaha, a few days later, Wahaha Group suddenly issued a statement saying that to ensure the company's stable and healthy development, after friendly consultation among shareholders, Ms. Zong Fuli decided to continue fulfilling her management responsibilities at Wahaha Group. By August 29, the resignation风波 came to an end. Wahaha Group underwent industrial and commercial changes, with Zong Fuli officially taking over as legal representative, chairman, and general manager, with her shareholding stable at 29.4%, consistent with Zong Qinghou's lifetime. After successfully taking over Wahaha Group, Zong Fuli did not stop. **As the saying goes, "a new emperor brings new ministers," with Zong Fuli's rise, Wahaha's management inevitably underwent a "major reshuffle."** According to Tianyancha, the four original board members of Wahaha, including Wu Jianlin, one of Wahaha's first university employees and the group's second-in-command; Pan Jiajie, who worked at Wahaha for over 30 years and was highly valued by Zong Qinghou; Yu Qiangbing, who rose from the grassroots to become the group's technical leader; and Zhang Hui, a key figure maintaining harmony between Wahaha and Shangcheng Capital, have all withdrawn from the board. The three people who replaced the "old ministers" on the board are all unknown young people, namely Ye Yaqiong, Hong Chanchan, Fei Junwei, and Wang Guoxiang, with Wang Guoxiang also serving as deputy general manager.

After winning the internal power struggle, Zong Fuli quickly launched a series of actions, successively taking over multiple companies under Wahaha. At the same time, Zong Fuli's personal wealth also soared. The Hurun Research Institute's 2024 Hurun Rich List showed that Zong Fuli had replaced Kuang Xiaoqing as China's richest woman. Although she now holds "great power," Zong Fuli's troubles are not over. In mid-August, Wahaha Group suddenly announced that employees were required to terminate their existing contracts with the group and sign new contracts with Hongsheng Beverage Group, led by Zong Fuli. This change directly led to the cancellation of employees' "dry stock dividends" benefits at Wahaha Group, sparking dissatisfaction and protests among employees. Faced with strong employee reactions, Zong Fuli had to state at her first职工 representative meeting that this year's dry stock dividends would not be canceled and the salary structure would not change, but dividends would be based on individual job performance, not solely on past seniority or rank. However, this statement failed to quell employees' anger, and rights protection actions continued. But compared to employee rights protection, a major problem Zong Fuli currently faces is the accusation that "Wahaha Group has encroached on huge state-owned assets." Previously, a whistle-blowing letter circulated online, claiming that Zong Fuli, through Hongsheng Group, directly outsourced production and co-invested in factories with overseas investment companies, transferring the rights and interests of Wahaha Group, which were originally state-owned, to her own Hongsheng Group.

It is understood that Hongsheng Group is controlled by Hengfeng Trading Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Hengfeng Investment Co., Ltd., in which Zong Fuli holds 100% control. Hongsheng, on one hand, undertakes Wahaha's product processing, and on the other hand, carries Zong Fuli's own brands. How to resolve the employee rights protection incident, quell the "encroachment of state assets" public opinion storm, restore employee confidence, and lead Wahaha to new glory will be issues that Zong Fuli needs to ponder and solve.

**The Market Is in Deep Water and Hot Fire** Where is Wahaha headed? How capable is Zong Fuli? Perhaps next year's "report card" will tell, but given the current market environment, Zong Fuli and Wahaha undoubtedly face enormous challenges. **This year, competition in China's beverage market has intensified significantly, especially in the packaged drinking water sector, where major brands have engaged in price wars, seemingly regardless of cost.** Among them, Nongfu Spring launched green bottle purified water, quickly distributing it offline, with prices in some supermarket channels dropping to 0.74 yuan. The price war was fierce, and other brands had no choice but to "respond" reluctantly. Now, the retail prices of Kangshifu drinking water and Jinmailang blue label water have all dropped below 1 yuan, some even as low as 0.6 yuan. Not only water, but also other beverage categories under Wahaha need to quickly find opportunities to occupy a position in the current market. In addition to the aforementioned bottled water giants, including Uni-President China, Dongpeng Beverage, Genki Forest, and other brands, as well as foreign brands like Coca-Cola and Suntory, competition in the beverage market is equally brutal. Yet in such a market environment, Wahaha, as an established beverage group, has not produced a hit product for a long time. Wahaha's current product matrix covers a comprehensive product network including packaged drinking water, protein beverages, carbonated beverages, tea beverages, fruit and vegetable juice beverages, coffee beverages, etc., and it launches many new products each year. However, whether on e-commerce platforms or offline channels, Wahaha's sales are still supported by the "old four items": purified water, AD calcium milk, Nutri-Express, and eight-treasure porridge. Wahaha has stable personnel and strict price control, but some distributors lack motivation, preferring to rely on classic old products and unwilling to put effort into promoting new products, so some new products face greater resistance when advancing into lower-tier markets. In fact, in recent years, Wahaha has also launched some "trend-chasing" products, but it is difficult to see them on the list of category hits.

Image: Some Wahaha products

Facing various problems and challenges, at the distributor conference, Zong Fuli revealed her new development path as the new leader. Zong Fuli stated: "Focus on breakthroughs in water and tea, achieve balanced development across five major products, implement multi-channel network layout, tap into multi-format sales potential, concentrate resources on strengthening terminal construction, increase the number of freezers and displays, comprehensively improve Wahaha's terminal display image and share, and in 2025, win at the terminal, maximizing the synergy between the sales team and distributor team." **Ideals are always beautiful, but reality is often cruel; Zong Fuli's approach will not be easy to implement.** Undoubtedly, Wahaha, entering the "Zong Fuli era," is undergoing a "major examination."


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