Coca-Cola reaps benefits of expanded reach in India
Premium- Coca-Cola is expanding its consumer base by adding affordable product offerings and reaching more outlets
NEW DELHI :
Coca-Cola Co. said initiatives taken by the company to expand its reach and consumer base in India yielded “strong results" in the first quarter of this calendar year.
India ranked among its key consuming nations in the Asia-Pacific as the world’s largest beverage maker beat Street estimates when it declared on Monday earnings for the quarter ended 31 March. Net sales during the quarter climbed 16% from a year earlier to $10.5 billion.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the maker of Sprite and Minute Maid reported a unit case volume growth of 4%, driven by India and the Philippines. Unit case volume growth is defined as the number of unit cases of beverages sold directly or indirectly by the company and its bottling partners.
In India, Coca-Cola is expanding its consumer base by adding affordable product offerings as well as reaching more outlets.
“In the first quarter, this strategy yielded strong results with more than 500 million incremental transactions added in India, up nearly 20% versus the prior year. Approximately 70% of these incremental transactions were driven by small packages such as returnable glass bottles and affordable, single-serve PET packages," the company said in an earnings statement.
India faced an early onset of summers this year while sharp improvement in consumer mobility in late February and March in line with a fall in coronavirus cases boosted beverage sales. This was after two consecutive summer seasons were disrupted by intense covid-19 waves. Beverage makers lined up new products and raised their marketing spends as India reported its warmest March in over 120 years.
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola added 240,000 outlets and installed 50,000 coolers in India in the quarter.
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James Quincey, Coca-Cola chairman and chief executive, said that in India, the company drove excellence in integrated execution by increasing product availability in line with an improvement in consumer mobility across channels.
“We also continue to build relevance through innovation by launching Maaza Aam Panna to leverage our equity in Mango and Fanta Apple to expand our footprint in the fast growing fruit flavoured sparkling sub-category," he said.
Within Coca-Cola’s bottling investments or its owned bottling plants, unit case volume grew 8% during the March quarter, driven by strong growth in the key markets of India and the Philippines, the company said.
Overall, unit case volume also grew 8%, with broad-based growth across all operating segments, it said.
“Developed markets as well as developing and emerging markets grew in high single digits. Growth in developed markets was led by the United States, the United Kingdom and Mexico, while growth in developing and emerging markets was led by Brazil and India," the company said.