At the moment, the domestic bottled drinking water market is experiencing increasingly fierce competition. New brands are continuously emerging, but there are few ones like Nongfu Spring that can open up the market and establish their own brand image. Reputed as the leading giant in China’s packaged drinking water industry, Nongfu Spring has maintained the lion’s share in China’s packaged drinking water market from 2012 to 2019 for eight consecutive years. In addition to natural water, Nongfu Spring also holds an advantage in the beverage market. It has launched various kinds of products with distinctive features including tea drinks, functional drinks, fruit juice, coffee, sparkling flavored drink and plant-based yogurt, creating famous beverage brands such as Oriental Leaf, Scream Energy Drink and Farmer’s Orchard.
Nongfu Spring was established in 1996. Taking "Nongfu Spring tastes a bit sweet" as the selling point and with the practical experience and strong financial support of the enterprise, Nongfu Spring marched on China’s water market and rose up rapidly through a wide range and high-density advertising bombardment, which helped to establish a healthy and high-quality brand image for Nongfu Spring. Since 1999, Nongfu Spring has been working hard to shape the business philosophy and brand image of treating life kindly, paying attention to health and attaching importance to sports. It was designated as the only official water for Chinese table tennis team in 1999 and had been the main sponsor of Chinese table tennis national team for five consecutive years.
On April 24, 2000, Nongfu Spring announced that it would completely stop producing purified water, which not only helped to shape its professional brand image that advocates health, but distinguished Nongfu Spring from its counterparts in brand image.
In 2002, Nongfu Spring natural water was one of the first batch granted the certificate of "Inspection-free Qualification" by AQSIQ; AC Nielsen company, the world's largest market research institution, released the report on China's urban consumer market and announced the top six popular consumer brands in China, among which Nongfu Spring was the only domestic brand. In the same year, Nongfu Spring Sunshine Project, which focused on the construction of sports facilities of primary and secondary school from the social level, was officially initiated, helping to raise the brand reputation and loyalty to a new high.
Since that, Nongfu Spring has made constant efforts to better understand consumer demand and diversify its product offering including Tea π, Scream Energy Drink, Farmer's Orchard, NFC Juice and other products. Nongfu Spring has double its efforts in developing fruit juice, tea, coffee and plant protein products based on natural raw materials, and promoted R&D of functional drinks featuring health. For instance, Nongfu Spring Scream Energy Drink launched in 2004 is a functional drink for sports. With the differentiated "sports cap" design and unique marketing, it successfully opened up the market at that time.
Beyond products, Nongfu Spring has also made intensive efforts in channel diversification and product innovation. It has opened up multiple foodservice market channels and occupied unmanned retail, self-service vending machines, convenience stores, etc. New products that launched in a single year 2019 included plant-based yogurt, RTD coffee-Tan Bing Coffee, fresh ground coffee, etc.
Apart from those familiar soft drink products, Nongfu Spring also launched Northeast Fragrant Rice, 17.5°Apple, 17.5°Navel Orange and other agricultural products. Especially in 2020, Nongfu Spring launched a number of products such as Xinjiang Weeping Apricot, Pomegranate, 17.5°Aksu Golden Delicious Apple in the second half of the year. As we can see that agriculture is also an important part of its business layout.
In 2020, Nongfu Spring, the almost all-round player in marketing, channels, products and innovation, was officially listed on the Hong Kong stock exchanges, creating more value for the enterprise. It is expected that Nongfu Spring will further expand the market in the drinking water industry with its solid enterprise foundation and brand influence.