28 FMCG Companies win Over 100M Chinese Households

28 FMCG Companies win Over 100 Million Chinese Households and leading fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies continue to attract new consumers

In today’s increasingly fragmented market, whoever captures consumers wins. A brand’s market position is tightly linked to its penetration (defined as how many households buy the brand). After Worldpanel (a CTR service in China) expanded its coverage to include towns, its latest data, during the 52 weeks ending 3 Oct 2025, show that 28 FMCG giants each reached more than 100 million urban/town households in China.

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Compared with last year, these 28 leaders collectively added 2.13 million urban/town buying households, with a mean increase of 0.8%. Vinda Group led the pack with rapid growth of 10.4%, while Wahaha, Nongfu Spring, Orion and Uni-President also posted strong gains.

Rachel Lee, General Manager of Worldpanel China, stated: "Chinese consumers are becoming more rational. Beyond meeting product performance and emotional value, they also seek tangible returns for every penny spent. Against this backdrop, leading companies have successfully attracted new customer groups and gained an edge in the saturated market by accurately capturing the needs of different demographics, continuously launching products tailored to new scenarios and demands, and capturing emerging channel growth and penetration into lower-tier markets. This strategy is crucial for fast-moving consumer goods companies."

Occasion-driven, convenient, healthier – the magnets for new fans

Seize emerging channels, harvest incremental shoppers

China’s retail landscape is changing with each passing day, racing toward greater diversity, intelligence and personalization. An omnichannel, differentiated strategy has thus become a make-or-break priority for every manufacturer.

While overall offline and e-commerce penetration looks flat, currents run deep. Snack-discount stores (up 7.3 pts penetration) wow shoppers with novel products.  Membership stores, with store and warehouse integration, brings a convenient shopping experience, combined with streamlined and high-end SKUs, has all resulted in an increase in the number of shoppers. Its penetration has risen by about 5 points. In e-commerce, Douyin has gone beyond livestreaming to aggressively expand its in-app mall, pushing the platform’s overall penetration rate up by more than five percentage points. In O2O, frontline warehouse (Freshfood shopping apps), which cater to office workers who want the convenience of cooking at home, have uplift penetration by 2 points.

Worldpanel shows that within the 52 weeks ending 3rd October 2025, the top-28 manufactures won 21 million new shoppers in snack-discount stores, 4.4 million in membership stores, 12.3 million via Douyin and 3.6 million through frontline warehouse O2O.

Penetrate deeper into lower-tier markets to unlock incremental consumer

With national policy tilting toward lower-tier markets, economic momentum picking up, and infrastructure rapidly improving, counties and towns have become a sturdy engine of China’s growth. Winning the consumers who live there means winning the future. In the 52 weeks ended 3 Oct 2025, nationwide urban sales (tier 1-6) rose 1.8 % year-on-year; top-tier cities edged up only 0.2 %, tiers 3-5 climbed 1.7 %, while township markets surged 4.2 %.

The five fastest-growing manufacturers in recruiting Chinese households this year all expanded their consumer base by pushing deep into lower-tier markets. In the 52 weeks ending 3 October 2025, among Vinda’s 16.51 million new households nationwide; 13.59 million of them came from tier-3–6 cities and towns, with 4.5 million from towns alone. Wahaha pulled in 10.33 million new households, 7.85 million from tier-3–6 markets and 3.02 million from town markets.

Amid intensifying competition for a saturated market, widening penetration is the only reliable growth engine. Manufactures must dig deep into evolving consumer needs, seize emerging consumption occasions and new retail touchpoints, and plant their flags in lower-tier markets to keep the momentum alive.

Notes：

1. Worldpanel China continuously measures household purchases over 100 product categories including cosmetics, food and beverages and the toiletry/household sector. Its national urban panel covers 20 provinces and four municipality cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing). From 2022 on, Worldpanel – household panel covers more categories. All changes may lead to some inconsistencies with previous years ‘data. 2022 newly covered categories are: yellow rice wine, vinegar, Chinese sauce, flour, seaweed, noodles, sachima, nuts, rice, dry fruit/vegetables, laundry sheet, filter cartridge

2. 1-2 tier cities / Upper tier cities: include Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou/Chengdu and provincial level cities.

3. 3-6 tier cities / Lower tier cities: include prefecture level cities, county-level cities, counties and towns.

4. Mengniu group includes Yashili

5. Nestle includes Nestlé, Hsu Fu Chi, Wyeth Nutrition, Totole and Haoji

6. Mars includes Mars and Wrigley

7. Colgate-Palmolive includes Colgate and Darlie

8. China Resources includes Jiangzhong group, and excludes Vanguard and Pacific Coffee

9. Ecommerce includes: 1) traditional platforms like Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, 2) Social ecommerce platform like Little red book, Weibo, WeChat store, WeChat moments 3) Short Video platforms like Douyin, Kuaishou

10. O2O includes 4 types: Offline retailer self-run, Horizontal marketplaces, Community group buy and Frontline warehouse ecommerce