Tea-related drinks continue to grab more of the beverage market this year with more companies jumping into the beverage battlefield with new brands.
"The tea-beverage segment is dramatically growing and poses a threat to the carbonated soft drink market," said Desmond Wang (
According to ACNielsen, the ready-to-drink tea-beverage market, including green tea, black tea and milk tea sold at convenience stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets and mom-and-pop stores, saw annual sales of NT$18.2 billion from April last year to last month, a 14-percent jump from the previous year.
The carbonated soft drink market generated NT$6.5 billion in sales during the same period, growing by less than 1 percent.
The nation's beverage market was worth more than NT$61.6 billion and tea beverages account for 30 percent, the tallies showed.
"During the past three years, tea drinks have shown amazing growth potential, thereby luring more competitors to the market," Wang said.
Swire Coca-Cola Taiwan Ltd (台灣太古可口可樂) has jumped on the bandwagon and plans to introduce more tea products this summer.
"We cooperated with Ten Ren Tea Co (
ACNielsen Taiwan's statistics showed that in February, Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業) remained the nation's largest beverage maker as its tea brands occupied the top three places in terms of sales.
"The main reason is that the company holds an advantageous position in the retailer market," Wang said.
Uni-President Enterprises owns around 3,540 7-Eleven convenience stores and 130 Cosmed (
The company's rising star "Chai Li Won," or "king of the tea," was launched in April 2002 and accounted for NT$1 billion in sales last year, according to Liu Li-chien (
"The sales really took us by surprise," Liu said.
Chai Li Won ranked third in ACNielsen Taiwan's February survey.
Liu said the company is continuing to develop new flavors of tea drinks but did not specify the number of new products to be introduced this summer.
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