Nongfu Spring's revenue surpasses 50 billion for the first time; Zhong Shanshan thanks the team for weathering public opinion.

Ask AI · With growth in bottled tea beverages slowing, how does Nongfu Spring maintain growth momentum?

After returning to a sound course, once Nongfu Spring has broken the 52.55B yuan scale, how to sustain growth has become a new challenge the company needs to address.

On the evening of March 24, Nongfu Spring (9633.HK) released its 2025 annual results: full-year revenue reached RMB 15.87B, up 22.5% year over year, marking the company’s first time crossing the RMB 50 billion threshold; profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 8B, up 30.9% year over year. Growth in core indicators has already nearly reached the level before the public-opinion controversy occurred (in 2023).

In the annual report, Nongfu Spring Chairman Zhong Shanshan specifically thanked all company employees and business partners for their collective efforts, and said that the new management team has weathered the challenge of public sentiment.

Benefiting from lower procurement prices for raw materials such as PET, paper cartons, and white sugar, together with the company’s proactive efforts to control the sales mix in its e-commerce channels, Nongfu Spring’s gross margin in 2025 surpassed 60.5%, and its net profit margin exceeded 30%, reaching the best level since 2017.

On the first trading day after the earnings release (March 25), Nongfu Spring’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged as much as 11.59%, ultimately closing at HKD 46.88, up 10.27%.

If 2024 was the “stormy year” when Nongfu Spring encountered the public-opinion controversy, 2025 can be described as after the rain, the clouds parting and the sun shining through.

As the business returned to a normal track, Zhong Shanshan also became more low-key, gradually fading from the public eye, with fewer times speaking publicly than in the year when the public-opinion incident erupted. According to the Hurun Rich List released in March, at age 72, Zhong Shanshan ranked second among China’s entrepreneurs with a fortune value of RMB 515 billion (up 35% year over year).

In terms of business structure, Nongfu Spring divides its operations into five major segments: packaged water, tea beverages, functional beverages, juices, and other products (such as sparkling water and coffee plant-based drinks).

Nongfu Spring started out by selling water, but starting in 2024, tea beverages have surpassed drinking water to become the company’s largest internal business segment—and the trend is continuing. In 2025, tea beverage revenue was RMB 8B, up 29% year over year; it accounted for 41.1% of total revenue. A major single product, Oriental Leaf (东方树叶), has played a crucial role.

According to third-party research data, Oriental Leaf currently holds a stable market share of 75%—80% in the no-sugar ready-to-drink tea market, making it an absolute leader. As competition intensifies, Nongfu Spring has defended its leading position by launching larger 1.5L packaging and reward-on-opening promotions, among other initiatives.

In 2025, growth in the no-sugar tea market has slowed significantly. Nongfu Spring also stepped up its efforts in the sweetened tea market by launching a new product called “Iced Tea.” However, compared with previous years’ financial reports, growth in its tea beverages segment clearly slowed. In 2023 and 2024, this segment’s growth exceeded 83% and 32%, respectively.

Zuo Yu / photo

A major highlight of this earnings report is that the packaged water business, which had been severely hit by the earlier public-opinion controversy, has returned to a growth track. During the period, revenue was RMB 21.6B, up 17.3% year over year, and it accounted for 35.6% of the company’s total.

Reporters noted that “green bottles out, red bottles in” is Nongfu Spring’s biggest change in its drinking-water business last year. The company increased resource allocation toward red-bottle water, cancelled promotional subsidies for green-bottle purified water, and low-priced green-bottle water at RMB 9.9 per 12 bottles has become a thing of the past.

According to institutional research, to重推 (re-promote) red-bottle water, Nongfu Spring also required distributors to ensure the display ratio of red-bottle water to green-bottle water is no less than 7:3, squeezing the upside space for green-bottle water rebates.

Shui Furong / photo

The combined two major segments—drinking water and tea beverages—have brought Nongfu Spring more than 76% of revenue. In addition, last year the functional beverage business generated RMB 8B and juice generated RMB 8B; year over year, they grew 16.8% and 26.7%, respectively. Other beverage categories such as coffee, sparkling water, and plant-based drinks generated revenue of RMB 18.71B, up 10.7%.

Breaking the RMB 50 billion scale means Nongfu Spring has firmly stayed in the first tier of China’s beverage industry. Against the backdrop of slowing growth in its top business (tea beverages), how to continue to maintain growth is the next challenge the company needs to face.

Reporter Shui Furong

Text editor Zuo Yu