Celsius Holdings, the parent company of energy drinks Celsius, Alani Nu and Rockstar Energy, had a record year in 2025, delivering full-year revenue of $2.5 billion and representing growth of more than 85%. The company reached approximately 20% dollar share of the U.S. energy drink category in Q4 2025 — good news for PepsiCo, which increased its stake in the company in August 2025.
“With an evolved operating model and our brand integration firmly on track, we are entering 2026 with positive momentum, scale and confidence in our ability to deliver sustainable, long-term shareholder value,” said Chairman and CEO John Fieldly in a statement around the earnings.
Key to Celsius’ continued growth is a marketing organization that the company restructured in September by creating chief brand and chief creative officer roles that are intended to help scale its “big brands into mega brands,” Fieldly said in a press release at the time. The chief brand officer position belongs to Kyle Watson, who has led marketing for the Celsius brand in North America since 2019.
“My role is moving more toward everything that comes down to the brand's identity and how we interact and engage with our communities, how we're a part of culture, and how we continue to expand each of the brands individually and how we’re going outside of just the beverage piece of it,” Watson said.
The executive, most recently CMO for the Celsius brand, is now responsible for brand equity across the company’s entire portfolio. Celsius Holdings acquired Alani Nu in April 2025 and took over the Rockstar Energy brand as part of PepsiCo’s recent investment.
“There's a need to make sure that each brand within our portfolio has very clear individual and authentic identities,” Watson said. “We wanted to make sure we had that focus, because we're here to build brands, not beverages.”
In-house and IRL
To aid in the development of its brands, the company announced the creation of a full-service, in-house agency that is intended to “drive brand growth with speed, consistency and sophistication,” Fieldly said on the recent earnings call. The brand studio will shape and scale how the brands show up in consumer touchpoints in packaging, campaigns, digital-first content and more. While Celsius previously relied on an internal creative team along with outside agencies and content creators, the new organization will step up the company’s capabilities.
“With the studio, it really gives us so much in-house mobility and allows us to pivot really quickly, because for all three brands, concept is incredibly important, and we want to be a brand that isn't having to brief outside people that don't understand the brand and don't have the brand's lens,” Watson said.
The studio will have teams focused on each individual brand, and the company will still bring in outside partners where needed to help the brands keep a pulse on trends and differentiate content.
“Whether it's social or it's commercial content, it’s an incredible resource for us to build that team internally, because it does allow us to be extremely nimble when it comes to creating content,” the executive added.
Creating content is crucial as Celsius iterates on a “Live. Fit. Go” platform that launched last year and continues to be the bedrock for the brand’s efforts around functional energy beyond fitness. The platform is part of its efforts in the Formula 1 space, where Celsius is now global energy drink partner for the Aston Martin team after previously sponsoring the Scuderia Ferrari team.
“We are incredibly focused on making sure we're thoughtful about how our brand plays in the space. We don't want it to be throwing logos on cars and helmets,” Watson said of the partnership. “‘Live. Fit. Go’ is really this call to action, this mantra, that we're tying our brand to. It's our DNA, and we want that to come out in our partnership with Aston Martin and the way that we're showing up in Formula 1 as a cultural move.”
To that end, the Celsius brand partnered with fitness app Strava to create run clubs around F1 race locations. The effort kicked off last month around the Australian Grand Prix that gave consumers a chance to win Aston Martin gear and a year’s supply of Celsius. The brand also is continuing its “Fit Stop” activations, which bring together workouts, DJ sets and product sampling, and connecting with hyperlocal run clubs and wellness communities.
“We're looking at how we're going to create this much larger ecosystem with loyalty programs and digital ecosystems, but also in real life activations and community building,” Watson said. “It's incredibly important bringing people together as a brand and being that thread to pull together communities. That creates a lot of value and emotional connection for the brands.”
Evolving energy consumers
After last year’s acquisitions, Celsius Holdings’ full portfolio is now better suited to deliver on the promise of modern energy for the next evolution of consumers. The company’s record revenue was primarily driven by the more than $1 billion in revenue generated by the women-focused, influencer-friendly Alani Nu after the acquisition closed in April.
“There's a lot of evolution in the energy drink category. You're seeing this shift from largely positioned around extreme sports and more of that male-dominated performance,” Watson said. “It's really expanding into this broader lifestyle-driven space, and a lot of that's being driven driven by Gen Z females coming into the category.”
These new consumers are looking not just for functionality in their beverages, but brands that are aligned with their values, that offer emotional connections and that feel like an extension of their personalities. In that way, beverage is more like an accessory, the executive explained — a development that could be behind the rush of new entrants including Unwell Hydration from “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper and Update, which was recently relaunched with Kim Kardashian as a co-founder.
Meanwhile, the company has a new way to engage traditional energy consumers through Rockstar Energy, which was founded in 2001 and, at one point, had 10% market share of the global energy drink market behind Red Bull and Monster Energy. Along with its 25 years of brand equity, Rockstar has an opportunity to engage new consumers looking for a grungy, music-centric brand at a time when Gen Z consumers are finding nostalgia in millennial metal bands like Deftones and System of a Down.
“I think there is a way to bring back this cool, OG brand equity that Rockstar had originally, and bring back that consumer, but also attract this new male, core energy consumer,” Watson said. “It's so incremental to our portfolio. I love that it's a little bit irreverent, and just allows us to have this different personality for a brand within our portfolio.”
