Tucker Beaudin, a rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University, had his first Celsius (Peach Vibe, specifically) at 4 a.m. during a 2022 all-night study session at the library. It helped him to feel “locked in,” but that occasional emergency measure for marathon cramming became a daily habit.
“As the semester got more difficult, it became easier to justify drinking Celsius,” Beaudin says. “I went from drinking [it] maybe once every other week to once a day.”
Beaudin sees a lot of people around campus pounding cans of Celsius, which contain 200 milligrams of caffeine each, to stay ahead of coursework. But Celsius is popular outside of college campuses too. The company has invested in flashy sponsorships with Gen Z influencers like Jake Paul and David Dobrik, bolstering its reach and standing with young adults. Gen Z’ers on Capitol Hill reportedly can’t get enough. In 2022, PepsiCo invested $550 million in a partnership, resulting in the brand being stocked in approximately 95% of stores across the country, Celsius CEO John Fieldly told GQ. It’s not overwhelmingly surprising that Celsius Holdings, the company that sells Celsius, reported record revenue of $402 million in 2024’s second quarter alone.
We’ve entered a new, jittery era of energy drinks, and Celsius’s boom may be just beginning.
Celsius hasn’t always enjoyed the runaway success it sees today. In 2012, eight years after its founding, the company had branded the jewel-toned cans to focus on Celsius’s alleged weight loss prowess, but customers weren’t biting. The company was performing so poorly that it was delisted from the Nasdaq and removed from the shelves at Costco, where it made most of its revenue.
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A rebrand changed Celsius’s fate. Can designs were simplified, and Celsius was strategically positioned as a “functional beverage” that would become a part of consumers’ existing fitness routines, according to Kyle Watson, Celsius’s chief marketing officer. The company made sure its drinks tasted good too. Since 2019, the formerly delisted drink has seen its stock price jump nearly 3,000%. Its cans, featuring flavors like Galaxy Vibe and Sparkling Raspberry Peach and a whole slew of energizing ingredients (caffeine, guarana seed extract, green tea extracts), are everywhere.
It’s no accident that Celsius is particularly popular with Gen Z: The product is marketed directly to people between the ages of 18 and 24. “Gen Z is a very important demographic for us,” Watson said to Bon Appétit. “We really see that as the future of energy.”
Celsius’s push comes at a time when drinking habits in young adults are changing. There are still some college students downing BORGs (an acronym for “black out rage gallon”) but, on the whole, Gen Z is drinking less alcohol. That means more market share for seltzers, juices, and yes, energy drinks.
While brands like Red Bull, Monster, and 5 Hour Energy have defined the category since the ’90s, many newer energy drinks like Celsius occupy a hazy category the industry has collectively identified as wellness adjacent.