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Author: Zhu Yiyi, trainee reporter Feng Dianjun, Yin Hualu

Editor: Zhang Xingliu Xiang

Video丨Liu Runying

On the morning of July 18, a "Letter to All Employees of Wahaha Group" was circulated online, in which it was mentioned that Zong Fuli "decided to resign from the positions of Vice Chairman and General Manager of Wahaha Group from now on and will no longer participate in its operation and management."

Image source: Dahe Financial Cube

Latest response: Not aware of it

In this regard, a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald contacted relevant persons from Wahaha Group, but there was no response yet.

According to a reporter from Nancai Express, we asked the relevant staff of Wahaha Branch for confirmation.The other party said that he would not answer and did not know the specific situation.In addition, relevant personnel from Hangzhou Shangcheng District Cultural, Commercial and Tourism Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., Wahaha's largest shareholder, also responded to the Southern Finance News reporter and stated that they were not aware of the incident.

According to the observation of the reporter of 21st Century Business Herald, from the perspective of equity structure, Wahaha Group currently has three shareholders. The largest shareholder is Hangzhou Shangcheng District Cultural, Commercial and Tourism Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., which holds 46% of the shares. The company is actually controlled by the state-owned assets of Hangzhou Shangcheng District; the second largest shareholder, Zong Qinghou, holds 29.40% of the shares; in addition, the Wahaha Group's grassroots trade union joint committee holds 24.60% of the shares.

Screenshot of Tianyancha

A source told Sohu Finance that he learned from a Wahaha distributor thatRecently, many senior executives of Wahaha have resigned.The source quoted a former Wahaha executive as saying,Zong Fuli's move is a retreat in order to advance, with the aim of gaining greater shareholder authorization and related rights and interests.

Legendary Zong Qinghou retires

On February 25, 2024, Wahaha Group released an obituary through its official Weibo: Comrade Zong Qinghou, founder and chairman of Wahaha Group, died at 10:30 am on February 25, 2024 due to illness. He was 79 years old.

In the past 30 years since he started his business, Zong Qinghou has developed Wahaha from a distribution department of a school-run enterprise into a leading beverage company in China. He has steered the Wahaha Group, braved the wind and waves in the business world, and created well-known national beverage brands such as Wahaha Pure Water, AD Calcium Milk, and Shuangwaiwai.

With the sudden death of Zong Qinghou, the market is most concerned about the successor issue. Now, the baton of Wahaha has been passed from Zong Qinghou to Zong Fuli. Can she create a national brand again?

The Zong Fuli era begins

On February 23, 2024, Zong Fuli replaced Zong Qinghou as the legal representative, executive director and manager of Hangzhou Wahaha E-Commerce Co., Ltd.

As an established company with more than 30 years of history, Wahaha Group urgently needs to answer the question of “how to renew the brand and make Wahaha younger”.

The rejuvenation of products and marketing has become the core strategy of Zong Fuli since she took over the position of Wahaha Group.

In April 2018, after Zong Fuli took over as director of the brand public relations department of Wahaha Group, she led the team to launch new products such as AD calcium milk-flavored mooncakes, colorful version of Nutri-Express, and Nutri-Express makeup palette.

In 2020, Wahaha joined hands with blind box brand Pop Mart for cross-border cooperation and launched the world's first "blind water".

At the 2024 National Sales Work Conference in December 2023, Wahaha launched 14 new products at one go, including "1987 Juice Soda", coconut milk drinks, sugar-free tea drinks, etc.

Screenshots of some new products from Wahaha Source/Official disclosure

On the channel side, Wahaha's marketing focus has also clearly shifted to online, establishing an e-commerce company and building multiple e-commerce platforms...

Although the Zong Fuli era has begun, Wahaha faces challenges.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan and TouBao Research Institute, from 2019 to 2021, Wahaha's market share in the dairy beverage market was 24.87%/26.39%/23.60%, about twice that of the second-ranked Yili. At the same time, Euromonitor data shows that relying on the outstanding performance of the dairy beverage business, Wahaha has a high market share in the milk and flavored dairy beverage market, but as industry competition intensifies, the company's market share will drop from 6.2% in 2019 to 4.8% in 2023.

Wahaha has publicly stated that it will not go public, but it still faces challenges

Regarding the company's listing, Wahaha's attitude is also quietly changing.

Wahaha once publicly stated that it would not go public or raise funds. Zong Qinghou’s explanation was, “If we go public, we have to be responsible to shareholders. If the stock price falls in the end and ordinary people lose a lot of money, I don’t think it is appropriate.”

However, in recent years, Wahaha seems to have softened its stance on the topic of listing.

Zong Fuli once said in an interview with the media that "going public is a normal move in the development of an enterprise. For the entire enterprise, upstream and downstream integration can be achieved through going public."

Zong Fuli's road to succession is still full of challenges.

Some of the information comes from Sohu Finance

SFC

Editor of this issue: Jiang Peipei

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