In May 2021, a domestic "convenience store best-seller list report" released by the China Chain Store and Franchise Association attracted attention in the industry. The report shows that in the convenience store system, sales of water and beverages perform best. Among the beverages, the first convenience store sales are Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drinks (250ml gold cans).
After Red Bull Beverage was introduced to the Chinese market in the 1990s, it first applied for the registration of Chinese trademarks in the formulation, packaging and packaging. Red Bull formula is mainly composed of caffeine, vitamins and amino acids and other nutrients, by the Chinese shareholder of the joint venture company at that time China Food Company applied for a production license, and then, China Red Bull got the first health food approval for functional drinks, creating a new category of domestic functional drinks. After that, China Red Bull invested a lot of advertising to cultivate the concept of consumption, "thirsty to drink Red Bull, sleepy, tired to drink Red Bull", "energy, unlimited", "your energy beyond your imagination" and other slogans widely recited, Red Bull brand is also loved by the majority of consumers, 25 years of cumulative sales has exceeded 200 billion yuan, the tax paid reached 35 billion. According to the published data, in the first half of 2021, China Red Bull's sales were 12.73 billion yuan.
From the day of its inception, Red Bull China will be Red Bull beverages and corporate culture in line with the aesthetic habits of the Chinese, rooted in China, to create a unique concept of consumption, such as the popular Red Bull "golden pot" packaging, catchy advertising slogans, "every mountain to open the road, meet the water to build a bridge" corporate culture, "who plants trees who cool" dealer cooperation concept, 25 years of unchanged taste, packaging unchanged, price unchanged, becoming one of the few development miracles in the industry, It is also one of the few national beverage brands that has maintained annual sales of 20 billion yuan for many years.
After 2016, Red Bull China was embroiled in a series of disputes over trademarks and contracts due to the trouble of tencel, one of the shareholders of the joint venture company. At the end of December 2020, Red Bull of China's claim for ownership based on the Red Bull series of trademarks was rejected by the Supreme People's Court, and the case has many historical causes and complicated relationships, and is still being retried. Since there are currently more than 20 lawsuits between the two parties in the process of trial, there are no relevant judgments such as "trademark infringement", and the Beijing Municipal High People's Court has also rejected the claim of the shareholders of the joint venture company controlled by Tencel in Thailand for the liquidation of Red Bull Vitamins, which is legally produced and sold by Red Bull of China.
In 2019, Tencel thailand launched three Red Bull products similar to The Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drink packaging and decoration in China, Annegi and Red Bull Vitamin Flavored Drink, operated by different distributor agents. And most of the shelves are sold together, the three Red Bull drinks only have the bottom text and the jar pull ring is different, the Chinese Red Bull can is labeled as Red Bull vitamin functional drink, the Annegi version is marked as Red Bull Aneji beverage, and the imported version and the domestic version of Red Bull introduced after Tencel in Thailand are labeled as Red Bull vitamin flavored drinks. The four product formulations are very different. Annegi used the "Yao Energy" formula and product approval that was delisted in 2015 because of the difference in taste between American ginseng and Red Bull drink. Red Bull vitamin flavored drinks are not health foods, compared to China's Red Bull products ingredients are very different, although also called vitamin drinks, but the vitamin content is much less than China's Red Bull products.
In addition to the pursuit of beverage taste, consumers are paying more and more attention to the health components and functionality of beverages. In 2019, the scale of domestic beverages reached 991.4 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 1.3 trillion yuan in 2024, and the growth rate of the functional beverage industry is even higher than the growth rate of the overall beverage industry. Although China's Red Bull market share remains half of the country, it is obvious that it is also disturbed by commercial disputes from the annual growth rate.
The rivalry between the two bulls has clearly transcended the competition for interests between the two business entities, and since Red Bull China has been deeply rooted in the Chinese market for 26 years, the physical investment in production and sales and the cooperative relationship between dealers involve the direct or indirect interests of millions of people. If the Red Bull functional drinks familiar to Chinese consumers disappear, I am afraid that it will not be conducive to the prosperity of the industry, and it will also hurt the brand feelings of Chinese consumers.