The “involution” of the beverage industry is also intensifying. Not only are established companies launching new products that meet current needs to attract young people, but new consumer brands are also entering the Red Sea where "predecessors" already have considerable advantages, hoping to make their cakes bigger.

Recently, the Tmall flagship store of Yuanqi Forest’s beverage brand “Alien” launched “mineralized” natural soft mineral water. The product introduction information states that the mineral water "comes from springs deep in Yunnan's primeval forests" and is "filtered through deep underground basalt for 34 years" and canned directly at the water source.

The Tmall flagship store shows that the original price of this new product in a box of 550ml*24 bottles is 120 yuan, and the current promotional price is 96 yuan. Alienware told Jiemian News that this product is currently only sold online, and offline distribution has not yet begun.

"Alien" is a sub-brand launched by Yuanqi Forest earlier. The first product of this brand was an energy drink, and later it launched electrolyte water products.

Tianyancha App shows that Chuzhou Alien Beverage Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Alien") is a wholly-owned investment by Yuanqi Forest (Beijing) Food Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yuanqi Forest") A subsidiary of Alien, "ucon", which means "youmine", is a newly registered trademark of Alien in April this year.

Yuanqi Forest’s first self-built factory is also located in Chuzhou, Anhui. In July 2020, Yuanqi Forest invested 1 billion yuan in a new factory in Chuzhou, Anhui, which was officially put into production. Since then, beverages including alien energy drinks, Yuanqi Forest tea, soda and sparkling water can be produced in the factory.

It is worth noting that in addition to natural mineral water, Alien has recently registered many other trademarks. Jiemian News found that Alien has also registered multiple new trademarks including convenience food, food, medicine, beer and beverages, such as "soul bomb", "SOUL BULLET", "无乐不做", and "JOY JOY" , "Steven Universe", "Almighty Code", etc. The trademarks are currently waiting for substantive examination and trademark application stages.

We have reported on Yuanqi Forest’s multi-category layout strategy many times. In addition to beverages, Yuanqi Forest is also involved in the fields of healthy light meals and fast food chains. In the beverage track, Yuanqi Forest’s multi-category layout plan is also gradually highlighted. It started with soda and sparkling water, and then gradually expanded its business territory to tea beverages, milk tea beverages (milk tea), yogurt and other categories. This year, a juice line product called "Fufen" was launched. This product is sparkling water added with pure juice. Its price in convenience stores reaches more than 8 yuan, and it is positioned as a relatively high-end product.

As a sub-brand of Yuanqi Forest, Alien is different from the main brand in terms of positioning. It focuses more on people who like sports and e-sports and office workers, and competes for the market of traditional beverage brands. In addition to the existing energy drinks, electrolyte water and mineral water, according to the progress of Alien's trademark application, the brand may also launch beer products in the future.

Currently, bottled water is the largest segment in my country’s soft drink market. Euromonitor data shows that the market size of China's soft drink industry reached 578.6 billion yuan in 2019, of which bottled water accounted for 34.5%, the highest proportion among all categories.

The bottled water market is still dominated by big brands. According to Nielsen data, the six major brands, Nongfu Spring, Yibao, Baisuishan, Master Kong, Binglu and Wahaha, account for about 80% of the market share. Nongfu Spring’s prospectus shows that aquatic products contribute more than half of its sales and have the highest profit margins, making it the most profitable part of Nongfu Spring.

As the bottled water industry gradually upgrades from pure water to natural mineral water, and then from natural mineral water to subdivided mineral water, more brands focusing on high-end subdivisions have also gained opportunities.

The main threshold for bottled water is to have high-quality water resources and channels. The advantage of established bottled water giants such as Nongfu Spring is that they have already established their own long-term water sources and mature distribution channels. Therefore, when new brands like Yuanqi Forest enter the bottled water industry, they are bound to gradually establish their own channels and control channel costs.

One of Yuanqi Forest’s major investments this year is the layout of offline channels. Its brand founder Tang Binsen mentioned at the dealer conference at the beginning of the year that Yuanqi Forest's offline channel sales target for 2021 will be increased from 2.1 billion yuan to 7.5 billion yuan, and it will launch smart freezers and provide equity incentives to dealers in core areas.

Many opinions in the industry believe that although Yuanqi Forest cannot compete with established packaged water giants such as Nongfu Spring in terms of share, its speed of "overtaking in corners" has forced traditional beverage giants to face up to this problem. competition.