Familiar imported wine brands and domestic wine giants dominated streaming platform Doyin’s wine category, the Chinese version of Tik Tok, but lagged far behind fellow Baijiu brands, the newly released annual white paper on drinks industry’s performance by Douyin’s parent company Bytedance has revealed.
The report titled ‘2021 Drinks Industry Insights and Content Ecosystem’ released by Bytedance-owned Ocean Engine ranked the five most active wine accounts and five most viewed wine accounts, respectively on its massive video-sharing platform that boasts over 600 million daily active users.
Domaine Baron de Rothschild Lafite, parent company of Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Saga, Legende, came in first as the most active wine account with the highest number of wine videos posted during the year, followed by popular Australian wine brand Penfolds.
China’s three largest wine producers took up the last three remaining spots on the top 5 list. The country’s biggest wine producer Changyu ranked No. 3 on Douyin last year, ahead of state-owned GreatWall Winery and Weilong Winery.
But in terms of viewership, Changyu beat DRB Lafite and came in first, followed by Penfolds, DBR Lafite, GreatWall Winery and Australia’s Yellow Tail.
Compared with other video platforms, Douyin is growing in popularity in China among merchants and brand owners as it links to major retail platforms such as Tmall and Pinduoduo as part of its services to generate sales.
Still wine is the majority of wines consumed in China so it’s no surprise among different categories of wine, it is the favorite for users in different income groups. Individuals with monthly income over RMB 20,000 (US$3,084) are the most frequent drinkers across all categories from still wines, sweet wine to Champagne and lightly-bubbled Moscato, according to the white paper.
But when it comes to overall ranking in terms of followers and views, the country’s most popular drink, the fiery baijiu, still rules.
The most popular drinks account on the video sharing platform in 2020 were singularly populated by baijiu brands, with just two beer brands on Douyin’s most followed drinks account list, highlighting that wine still pales in popularity in China against Baijiu, Beer and other alcoholic beverages.
Semi-dry wines like Moscato, however, is gaining steam. It is highlighted in the white paper as one of the fastest growing categories last year, with a jump of 342% in video contents on the category.
