Zhong Shanshan Biography
Zhong Shanshan is a rich Chinese businessman. He is the majority owner of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise and the creator and chairman of the Nongfu Spring beverage firm.
How old is Zhong Shanshan? – Age
He is 67 years old as of December 2021. He was born in 1954 in Zhuji, Shaoxing, China.
Zhong Shanshan Family – Education
He together with his two siblings Zhong Xiaoxiao, and Zhong Xuanxuan was born to Zhong Yangyi. During the Cultural Revolution, he dropped out of primary school and went to work in construction. He began studying Chinese in 1977 at what is now Zhejiang Radio & TV University.
Zhong Shanshan Wife
He is married to Lu Xiaoping. The couple has three children together.
How did Zhong Shanshan get rich?
Zhong launched Nongfu Spring in 1996 and still maintains an 84 percent share in the company, which has more than a quarter of the bottled water market in China, according to market research firm Mintel, where many people shun tap water due to health concerns.
Zhong Shanshan House
Zhong keeps a low public profile, and Chinese media have dubbed him a “lone wolf.” He bought an apartment in Hangzhou’s Xihu District, where he currently resides. The headquarters of Nongfu Spring is also in the Xihu district, which is recognized for its proximity to the city’s gorgeous West Lake.
Zhong Shanshan Business Career
Zhong worked as a journalist for the Zhejiang Daily before going into business in 1988. Zhong relocated to Hainan, a Chinese island off the coast, in 1988. During his tenure on the island, he sold mushrooms, shrimp, and turtles. He then moved on to work as a sales representative for the Wahaha beverage company, where he marketed healthcare supplements.
Zhong established a bottled water firm in Hangzhou in 1996, which became Nongfu Spring. Nongfu Spring ceased extracting natural minerals from its water in 1999. This was a smart marketing approach that helped them gain a lot of exposure with their target audience. It was popular in China at the time, where distilled water was the norm, despite concerns about its health advantages or lack thereof.
Under Zhong’s guidance, the company evolved to become China’s largest bottled water manufacturer and one of the world’s largest beverage corporations. Coca-Cola, Watsons, and Pepsi were all beaten out by the company to become the best-selling package beverage brand. Zhong used modern technologies like cloud computing and big data to obtain a competitive advantage in gaining a better understanding of Nongfu Spring’s consumer base. This enabled for unprecedented market expansion across the country, transforming this formerly small business into a national behemoth. Nongfu Springs natural water was the most popular bottled water in the country in 2012, according to Nielsen research.
Nongfu Spring has been the number one seller of bottled beverages in China since 2012. It held this position for eight years in a row. The initial public offering of Nongfu Spring in September 2020 significantly enhanced Zhong’s wealth. It boosted his fortune from $18.9 billion to more than $50 billion. According to Bloomberg and Forbes, this made him China’s wealthiest or second-wealthiest person. Zhong was named Asia’s wealthiest person by Forbes at the end of 2020. According to Forbes, Nongfu Spring’s rising share price made him China’s wealthiest person and the world’s sixth wealthiest person in January 2021, with a net worth of 95 billion dollars. However, he was only the wealthiest Asian for a brief time before being surpassed by Mukesh Ambani of India.
His emergence coincided with a wealth wave in China when over 100 billionaires were minted in 2020, collectively adding 0.5 trillion dollars to their fortunes. However, he lost nearly $30 billion and now ranks third among Asia’s wealthiest people, after Indians Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. Zhong has 75% ownership in Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy by September 2020. Wantai went public in April 2020, boosting Zhong’s riches and increasing his wealth. He was the chairman of Nongfu Spring and owned 84.4 percent of the company as of January 2021.
Zhong Shanshan Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of 67.4 billion.
