Chinese soft drink brand gains ground on Coca-Cola, Pepsi

Chinese soft drink brand Kangshifu is gaining ground on the three global giants - Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Sprite - according to research firm Canadean.

While the ranking of these top three brands has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade, Canadean has noted a great deal of movement in the growing Asian market. The key difference between Coca-Cola’s and PepsiCo’s brands and the Asian products is that the Asian brands are sold predominantly in one country.

Not surprisingly, China is the country seeing the biggest year-on-year increase in soft drink sales, with some local brands experiencing astronomic growth in the last decade. Also known as Master Kong, Kangshifu is now the fourth best-selling brand globally, rapidly ascending from below 30th position 10 years ago to 5th position five years ago.

Over the last five years, sales of Kangshifu have risen by more than 6 billion litres, with its iced tea and packaged water products being the most successful. Consumption of Kangshifu brands alone is now higher than the entire Russian soft drinks market, Canadean says.

Wahaha, Nongfushanquan and Uni-President are three other Chinese brands that have seen strong growth. Nongfushanquan has registered stunning growth over the last few years, growing 30% each year since 2008 and now ranking 16th in the top 20 global soft drinks line-up. In its local market, Nongfushanquan is perceived as being a good-quality product, with a strong brand image for its packaged water.

Uni-President is seeing robust growth year on year, with its milk iced tea product currently very popular with younger consumers. Wahaha is also developing rapidly, helped by the company’s strong distribution network; brand volume is now greater than the total UK carbonates market.

This information is based on the latest soft drinks data in Canadean’s online Wisdom Analytics database.