Beverages major Coca-Cola is witnessing a strong growth momentum in India, especially in the sparkling drinks segment, with a positive start to the year. The company, which released its global quarterly earnings on Tuesday, said that growth in India and China in the January-March period outpaced more developed markets such as Japan and Australia.
Talking about its performance in the Asia-Pacific region, Coca-Cola said, “Unit case volume growth of 5 per cent for the quarter was driven by strong performance in China and India, (which was) partially offset by a low single-digit decline in South-East Asia.”
Unit case volume means the number of unit cases (or unit case equivalents) of beverages directly or indirectly sold by the company and its bottling partners.
The US-based beverage major also said that the sparkling soft drink portfolio witnessed a double-digit volume growth in India. The company witnessed a favourable product mix in the Asia-Pacific region “as sparkling soft drinks grew volume double digits in China and India,” it said in a statement. James Quincey, President and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company, said: “We’re encouraged with our first quarter performance as we continue our evolution as a consumer-centric, total beverage company.” On an investor call, he said India and China helped accelerate the company’s topline growth. Coca-Cola India has been witnessing strong revenue and volume growth since the second half of 2017, after facing growth pangs for several quarters due to the challenging macro-economic conditions such as demonetisation, GST and lower rural demand.
(BusinessLine)
0 comments: