Coca Cola Eyes Business Development In India

The world’s largest beverage company,Coca-Cola, has not been able to crack a section of the Indian market even with brands such as Sprite, Maaza and Thums Up.

John Murphy, President of the Asia Pacific Group of Coca-Cola, said “India is “a different story,” referring to a market of almost 300 million people in the bottom half of the pyramid in India that is yet to take to the global soft drink brands. We have tried so many times in my time in the Coca-Cola system to crack the code there and we haven’t done it. We have got a team of pretty smart people who want to have the legacy to be the first to do so. India is the US giant’s sixth largest market and Coca-Cola is the country’s leading beverage maker. In India we have leader brands, but we have an industry that is very underdeveloped. Sprite, Maaza and Thums Up have tremendous equity in India and the company’s job is to leverage those brands to help grow the industry. We’re excited with the work we have under way to do that. In addition, we have a couple of other categories that we believe have tremendous room for growth as we go forward and the good news is there are not too many there yet who have cracked the code on leadership in those categories. Beverage landscape in Asia-Pacific is very different today than you have seen in other parts of the world. Seven out of every 10 beverages consumed in Asia-Pacific are non-commercial.

Coca-Cola is launching the first variant of Thums Up in 40 years. Called Thums Up Charged, it has stronger carbonation.

Company said in a statement “ Thums Up is among the country’s leading consumer goods brands. The launch of Thums Up Charged is in line with the company’s commitment of offering more choices to consumers. New variant is an intense combination of the strong taste of Thums Up with even more thunder. There will be no change in the sugar content of the existing Thums Up.