---
title: "Zong Fuli Takes Over, but Zong Qinghou Remains 'Uneasy'"
description: "After preparing for succession for over a decade, Zong Fuli has become the new leader of Wahaha, but her efforts to rejuvenate the brand have shown little effect. The 76-year-old founder Zong Qinghou may still have concerns as the company faces declining revenue and intense competition."
author: "黎佳瑜"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-12-19"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zong-fuli-takes-over-but-zong-qinghou-remains-uneasy-21329d2e/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zong-fuli-takes-over-but-zong-qinghou-remains-uneasy-21329d2e.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lWAWB4ut35HIGxwY3B-TCA"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%AE%97%E9%A6%A5%E8%8E%89%E6%8E%A5%E7%8F%AD-%E5%AE%97%E5%BA%86%E5%90%8E-%E4%B8%8D%E6%94%BE%E5%BF%83-21329d2e.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zong-fuli-takes-over-but-zong-qinghou-remains-uneasy-21329d2e/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Zong Fuli Takes Over, but Zong Qinghou Remains 'Uneasy'

> After preparing for succession for over a decade, Zong Fuli has become the new leader of Wahaha, but her efforts to rejuvenate the brand have shown little effect. The 76-year-old founder Zong Qinghou may still have concerns as the company faces declining revenue and intense competition.

Source: Future Consumption APP (ID: lslb168)

**After preparing for succession for over a decade, the rejuvenation effect has been minimal.**

Wahaha has a new leader, Zong Fuli, but 76-year-old Zong Qinghou may not be fully at ease.

On December 9, Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. announced that Zong Fuli, the only daughter of founder Zong Qinghou, would assume the roles of Vice Chairman and General Manager, responsible for daily operations.

This is a transition that has been in preparation for seventeen years. According to reports, Zong Fuli entered the food and beverage industry in 2004, serving successively as President of Hongsheng Beverage Group, Director of Wahaha's Brand Public Relations Department, and Deputy General Manager of Wahaha Group's Sales Company. Aiming to rejuvenate the group, Zong Fuli has led multiple brand marketing projects, enlisted several traffic stars, and launched a high-end new brand, KellyOne.

However, judging from the results, Zong Fuli's efforts to rejuvenate the group have yielded little. Zong Qinghou seems to have been hesitant about this long-cultivated successor. In 2017, he stated, "Succession in private enterprises is not necessarily by children; it could also be by the management team."

After this personnel change, Zong Qinghou will continue to serve as Chairman of the Group.

Zong Qinghou's concerns may stem from Wahaha's difficult situation. Once a leader in the domestic beverage industry with super products like AD Calcium Milk and Nutrition Express, Wahaha has gradually fallen behind the market in recent years, with revenue declining year by year, reaching its lowest point last year.

Following up on emerging categories and frequent product launches have not won over more young consumers. During this year's Double 12 shopping festival, the best-selling product on Wahaha's Tmall flagship store was still AD Calcium Milk. Market competition has also intensified, with new and old rivals like Nongfu Spring and Genki Forest, as well as new consumer brands skilled in marketing and traffic in various sub-categories.

For the "new leader" Zong Fuli, the challenges are just beginning.

**New Leader**

Zong Fuli has been preparing for 17 years to take over Wahaha Group from her father.

In 2004, Zong Fuli, who majored in International Business at a U.S. university, returned to China after graduation and joined Wahaha Group the following year, serving as Deputy Director of the Wahaha Xiaoshan No. 2 Base Management Committee, and later concurrently as General Manager of Wahaha Children's Wear and Kaqianna Daily Cosmetics Co., Ltd.

At that time, Wahaha was in a phase of rapid growth. First, Zong Qinghou proposed the goal of "sales exceeding 20 billion yuan in 3-5 years and 100 billion yuan in 5-10 years." Subsequently, Wahaha launched a milk product called Nutrition Express, which successfully became another super product following AD Calcium Milk in the following years.

Zong Qinghou's training for his future successor began at the upstream production end. In 2007, Zong Fuli became President of Hongsheng Beverage Group (hereinafter referred to as Hongsheng Beverage).

Hongsheng Beverage is Wahaha's upstream OEM factory, initially with only one beverage filling line. After Zong Fuli took charge, the company, based on beverage production, gradually covered various aspects of the industry chain, including raw ingredients, printing and packaging, and machinery manufacturing, through investments and establishing subsidiaries.

To date, Hongsheng Beverage has 20 production bases, over 40 branch companies, and more than 100 production lines, with an annual production capacity of over 48 million boxes. In terms of revenue, Hongsheng Beverage was reported to have operating income of 9.23 billion yuan in 2019, while Wahaha's revenue was approximately 46.44 billion yuan in the same year.

Later, in an interview with China Entrepreneur, Zong Qinghou commented that Zong Fuli is good at marketing and manages finances tightly, and under her leadership, Hongsheng Beverage's profit margin is higher than Wahaha's.

Under Zong Fuli's leadership, Hongsheng Beverage began to try brand incubation. In 2016, the high-end fruit and vegetable juice brand "KellyOne," named after Zong Fuli's English name, was officially launched. However, whether it was the pricing of 28-48 yuan or the concepts of 7-day short shelf life and C2M customization, it was too ahead of its time for the domestic market, resulting in a lukewarm response.

"KellyOne" originated from Zong Fuli's attention to young people and customization needs, and "rejuvenation" has been a keyword throughout her integration with Wahaha Group in subsequent years.

In 2018, Zong Fuli became Director of Wahaha's Brand Public Relations Department, and Wahaha Group subsequently launched a series of intensive brand co-branding and marketing activities to establish connections with Generation Z consumers.

For example, in March 2020, Wahaha and Zhong Xue Gao launched a co-branded "Underage Ice Cream"; in May of the same year, to promote the new product pH9.0 soda water, Wahaha cooperated with Pop Mart, co-branding with its top IP "DIMOO," using a blind box model of "random packaging + flavor" to sell beverages.

In addition to new consumer brands, Wahaha also co-branded with anime IPs like Douluo Dalu and LPL (League of Legends Pro League), and participated in Bilibili's offline events twice—seemingly, as long as young people like it, Wahaha won't miss it.

"As a consumer goods company, young people are always our primary target group," Zong Fuli once said in an interview with Xinhua Net, "...two-dimensional, trendy toys, and e-sports are all bridges we need to build to communicate with young people in the future."

But more well-known to the public than co-branding marketing is that Zong Fuli replaced Wang Leehom, who had cooperated with Wahaha for 20 years, with new traffic star Hsu Kuang-han as the brand spokesperson. KellyOne, which failed in the fruit and vegetable beverage market, adjusted its product structure in recent years, and its sparkling water series "Shengqi Bobo" launched last year also used Wang Yibo as spokesperson.

Judging from the results, apart from short-term sales growth brought by traffic star endorsements, Wahaha's attempts to "strive to become popular again" have not been very effective. Two comparable cases are: Coconut Palm Juice, which also aimed at rejuvenating an old brand, achieved success by going to the extreme of "the more rustic, the trendier"; and Want Want Group, known as the "co-branding maniac," has continuously made headlines through cross-industry ventures in healthcare, hotels, and co-branding in apparel and beauty.

However, for Wahaha, whose revenue has been declining year by year since 2013, embracing young consumers and promoting brand rejuvenation is indeed a development direction to follow. In this personnel change, the announcement pointed out that Zong Fuli led and presided over multiple important brand construction projects and made significant contributions to Wahaha's brand upgrade.

**Old Problems**

In March 2020, Zong Fuli concurrently served as Deputy General Manager of Wahaha Group's Sales Company.

That year, Wahaha's "midlife crisis" signals were strong—the "2021 China's Top 500 Private Enterprises List" released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce showed that Wahaha's 2020 revenue was 43.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.29%, reaching the lowest point in the company's decade.

As a former beverage giant, Wahaha's biggest problem is the long-term lack of new super products. Its two signature products, AD Calcium Milk and Nutrition Express, were both benchmarked against existing new products on the market at the time—AD Calcium Milk against Robust, and Nutrition Express against Xiaoyangren Miaolian.

The rapid market capture of these products was related to Wahaha's willingness to invest in traditional advertising and its strong channel advantages. In marketing, Wahaha secured the prime advertising slot between the CCTV News and weather forecast in January and February of the following year for 20.15 million yuan in 2001.

In terms of channels, Wahaha's "joint sales system" model consists of a network of "headquarters - branch companies - first-tier - second-tier - third-tier - terminals." It does not directly control terminals but mobilizes distributors at all levels, with headquarters dispatching personnel to help them with distribution, shelf management, and promotions to improve distribution efficiency. At the same time, Wahaha requires first-tier distributors to pay 10% of annual sales as a deposit to Wahaha (which pays interest on it), and to settle payments before shipping on monthly purchases, ensuring sufficient cash flow.

Another Wahaha product, Future Cola, which benchmarked against Pepsi and Coca-Cola, also achieved annual sales of 2 billion yuan through this system. With the slogan "Chinese people's own cola," Future Cola focused on lower-tier markets, but as Pepsi and Coca-Cola expanded from high-tier to low-tier cities, Future Cola gradually disappeared.

Subsequently, Wahaha attempted to create another super product and frequently launched new products. According to official website information, Wahaha's product matrix focuses on major categories such as drinking water, tea drinks, milk drinks, porridge series, carbonated drinks, and milk tea. On this basis, Wahaha carved out sub-categories and launched new products. For example, in milk drinks, Wahaha introduced oat milk, high-calcium protein milk, sleep-aid milk, liquid cheese, lactic acid bacteria drinks, and other products.

Wahaha tried to seize every emerging category. For instance, last year, benchmarking against Genki Forest, KellyOne launched the sparkling water drink "Shengqi Bobo"; this year, with functional foods and beverages becoming popular, Wahaha launched a low-sugar version of Nutrition Express, featuring ingredients like hyaluronic acid and GABA.

But at this stage, the beverage industry has entered a state of saturated competition. Facing highly personalized new consumer groups and rapidly iterating market demands, Wahaha, with a "copy" approach, lacks product innovation capability. At the same time, traditional media advertising has been replaced by internet marketing. In an era emphasizing content seeding and social media marketing, Wahaha, lacking experience, finds it hard to create miracles by spending money.

Like other traditional enterprises relying on distribution systems, Wahaha's response to e-commerce channels has also been somewhat lagging. In April 2020, Wahaha announced plans to build four e-commerce platforms, including a health products e-commerce platform (Kangyouli), a food and beverage e-commerce platform, a cross-border e-commerce platform, and Habao Amusement Park.

Similar to Gree's Dong Mingzhu, Zong Qinghou's understanding of e-commerce is to move the distributor system online: "We have a large number of offline distributors. We just need to build the online network and let them join the online platform."

Beyond food and beverages, Wahaha has also begun to focus on the big health sector, which is Wahaha's original business, as Zong Qinghou started his career with a children's nutritional liquid.

In 2018, Wahaha launched a drink called "Tianyan Jingjing" aimed at relieving eye fatigue, sold through WeChat business channels. In May 2020, Zong Qinghou gave away 60,000 health products for middle-aged and elderly people during his first live stream on Douyin to promote Wahaha's Kangyouli health food. In October this year, Wahaha invested in a new brand called "Qingnai," which currently offers oral beauty drinks such as nicotinamide sodium hyaluronate drink and anti-glycation oral liquid.

To find new growth curves, Wahaha has also attempted to expand into more business sectors. In 2012, Wahaha ventured into commercial real estate, launching "Waou Mall" in Hangzhou, which was reported to have suffered heavy losses and planned to terminate contracts two years later. In 2019, Wahaha authorized partners to open a tea chain brand "Wahaha Milk Tea Shop," but in September this year, news broke that franchise stores were closing one after another.

Zong Fuli gradually came to the forefront during Wahaha's "midlife crisis." With limited results from years of self-rescue and revenue falling to a low point, external expectations for Zong Fuli remain: can this "second-generation leader," representing fresh blood, lead Wahaha towards rejuvenation in the future?

**Are you "watching" me?**


---

## 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