"We love the new and loathe the old."

This is a can of Coca Cola:

Here are some bottles and a can of China's homegrown Future Cola (click to enlarge):

Here is a can and a bottle of Diet Pepsi:

This is a bottle of Diet Pepsi Twist:

This is a bottle of Future Cola's Wei C Cola or Vitamin C Cola, which according to their website, contains scientifically stabilized Vitamin C and is therefore a 'nutritious cola' (you yingyang de kele).

Hmm. rather unadventurous design and packaging.

Nonetheless, Wahaha, the company that owns Future Cola, is a highly successful and ambitious PRC original, with several succesful brands and a number of joint-ventures with French food and beverage giant Danone.

Below are a few extracts from a New York Times New Service report that paints a glowing picture. It's believable: based on casual observation, their distribution is excellent, and that is big part of success in selling consumer products in China.

China's Future Cola to carve out name abroad

The six-year-old homegrown brand has held its own against the likes of Pepsi and Coke

After labouring 15 years on a tea farm, Zong Qinghou returned to the city and a job riding his bicycle around town selling flavoured ice pops. It was an early experiment in private enterprise at the elementary school where his mother worked, and he hoped to grow it into a successful company.

Twenty years on, his humble enterprise is China's largest beverage company, Wahaha, with a nationally-known brand name and revenues of US$1.3 billion last year. Mr Zong has become one of the most influential entrepreneurs in China and his company's Future Cola has just been shipped to the US...

...'Chinese people are even more fashionable than Westerners,' he said. 'We love the new and loathe the old.'...

...Coke had 24 per cent of the soda market last year while Future Cola has less than half that, according to Chinese media reports. Coke sells 2.2 million tonnes per year, Pepsi 1.3 million tonnes and Future Cola 662,000 tonnes, according to the Economic Daily...

...'To people in central and western China, because Future Cola is the first in the market, it is perceived as an authentic cola product,' said a report in the Economic Observer. 'On average, the cost of a bottle of Future Cola is 0.5 renminbi (10 Singapore cents) lower than the two other colas, giving it great market advantage.'

You can find the report on Singapore's Business Times online here, or on the Tapei Times here. There is a related story on Future Cola's expansion plans on a trade website called Beverage World which can find here. Wahaha's own website is here.