Coca-Cola wanting a piece of the market, harder for “microbrew” players to survive

Recently, I was swept up by a low alcoholic beverage called “Lemon Road.” This is also even Coca-Cola after the first launch of Topak hard soda sparkling wine in June this year in China to further increase the code of low wine. Even big companies like Coca-Cola want a piece of the pie, so it’s easy to see how hot the low alcohol market is in China.

During National Day, I walked around the supermarkets. I found that low alcohol has really become the flow of alcohol on the shelves. In addition to the well-known Berry Sweetheart and May See, there are also many new faces.

In the last month, there has been a wave of financing for low alcohol: Belong, a sparkling fruit wine brand, has completed a multi-million dollar Pre-A round of financing; Berry Sweetheart, a fruit wine brand, has completed a strategic financing round of tens of millions of RMB; and Xiao Drunk, a low sparkling white wine, has received an angel round of financing of over 30 million RMB.

In the past two years, “tipsying” has continued to appear on social networks, becoming a keyword for young people’s alcohol consumption.

Roughly speaking, since 2020, there have been nearly 30 rounds of financing for “tipsys,” with brands such as Berry Sweetheart, Fubixing Employment, Ten O’Clock, and Empty Card being regulars on the financing list, with many hundreds of millions of yuan.

According to Nomura Securities forecast, by 2035, China’s low wine market size will exceed 250 billion yuan, a compound annual growth rate of nearly 35%. The huge market has attracted various new brands, and capital with a keen sense of smell has also been moved by the wind.

This also makes the low wine track under the attention of capital increasingly crowded. Statistics show that in 2020, more than 5,000 new low-degree wine brands were added to the Tmall platform alone. In addition, more and more beverage companies have also crossed the border of low-degree wine to join the competition.

During this year’s 618, only three days from June 1 to 3, low wine sales rose by as much as 80%, consistently outpacing liquor categories such as baijiu.

EARLY DATA data shows that in the first half of this year, sales of fruit wine on Taobao, Tmall, Tmall International and Jiuxian.com surged by 1,626.2% year-on-year to 324.3 million yuan, with sales of more than 3.6 million pieces, up 1,944.6%. In Tmall’s search “low wine,” I found that many products have monthly sales of nearly 10,000, “good,” “will buyback,” and other positive comments.

The rise of both Generation Z and her power is one of the significant reasons why low alcohol is becoming popular. According to CBN Data’s “2020 Young People’s Alcohol Consumption Report,” the post-90s and post-95s are the only group of people whose consumption has increased, and low alcohol has become the first thing young people drink.

Yin Kai, the founder of Tide Beverage Aloe (Shanghai) Brand Management Co., Ltd, pointed out that the younger generation’s changing lifestyle and social philosophy have made them more willing to drink with friends in a relaxed and comfortable manner without burdens.

It is worth noting that among the post-90s, the number of female drink consumers has surpassed that of men. E-commerce and social media platforms have also launched special “girls’ wine” events for women. On Little Red Book, there are more than 100,000 notes about “girls’ wine,” which shows the popularity of low alcohol.

As more and more new products join, the competition on the low wine circuit is getting fiercer, making the low wine category start to roll in and face the problem of homogenization.

When I visited offline shopping malls, I found that although there are many brands of low wine, the variety is not comprehensive. A glance through different brands of various packaging of plum wine occupied 80% of the shelves.

Some industry insiders said that few emerging low wine brands have built their own factories, products are often OEM or commissioned design and production, which has led to a large number of low wine products the same phenomenon.

Taste is similar, brand awareness and lack of influence. Many low wine brands simply can not form memory and be identified in the consumer.

Low wine brands have not yet emerged as head leaders. However, Yin Kai predicts that head brands will definitely occur in this track. In the next three years, the low-grade wine market will be a huge and dramatic one.