【Epoch Times news on August 23, 2026】
Unification Enterprise (Unification) recorded a total beverage revenue of 10.751 billion yuan (RMB) in the first half of 2026, a decrease of 0.3% year-on-year. This marks the first decline in Unification’s beverage business in the past five years in the half-year report. Beverage revenue accounts for 60% of Unification’s total revenue.
In the recently released “2026 Mid-Year Performance Announcement,” Unification stated: “Beverage revenue reached 10.7511 billion yuan, a 0.3% decrease compared to the same period last year, accounting for 62.1% of the group’s total revenue.”
Specifically, the key categories saw tea beverage revenue of 4.889 billion yuan, a 3.5% decrease year-on-year; juice revenue of 1.721 billion yuan, a 5.5% decrease; and milk tea revenue of 3.645 billion yuan, a 7.3% increase.
According to the new media platform “Interesting Report” under the “China News Weekly,” in 5 FamilyMart and 7-Eleven convenience stores in Chaoyang District, Beijing, two of the stores did not shelf Unification products, while the remaining three stores had their beverage coolers predominantly occupied by other brands, with Unification drinks only occupying one shelf, offering limited products including iced black tea, iced green tea, and Assam milk tea.
On the popular social media platform “Yueyu Guanlan,” it was mentioned that a company with over 30 years of experience in the beverage business still relies heavily on products like iced black tea, green tea, and fresh orange juice. Iced black tea has been selling for over 30 years, while fresh orange juice has been on the market for over 20 years. However, the number of people willing to purchase these products is declining.
A supermarket owner in Hangzhou stated: “If I give my son 10 yuan to buy a drink now, he would definitely choose a 6 yuan bottle of electrolyte water. The customer base for Unification beverages is shifting towards price-sensitive middle-aged and elderly consumers.”
Furthermore, the previously popular beverages from Unification are all sugary drinks. With changing health consciousness among the public, more people are opting for sugar-free drinks.
Industry insiders have expressed concerns that Unification’s beverage business is facing a “mid-life crisis.”
Looking at the entire beverage industry, with the decline in the Chinese economy, both production and sales of beverages have experienced a downturn. According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China, in the first half of 2026, the total production of beverages above a certain scale in China decreased by 0.5% year-on-year, marking the first decline in the first half of the year in the beverage industry in the past five years. Data from the third-party organization Ma Shengyi also shows that in the second quarter of 2026, sales of beverages decreased by 11.78% year-on-year, with the largest decline among all fast-moving consumer categories. Specifically, sugary ready-to-drink tea declined by 11.17%, ready-to-drink juices by 14.84%, energy drinks by 8.4%, and sports drinks by 8.84%. However, sugar-free ready-to-drink tea maintained a 16.1% increase.