Coca Cola To Invest $5B In India To Boost Growth

Beverages giant Coca Cola announced Tuesday that it would nearly double the investment to $5 billion by 2020 in India. The investment of $5 billion is higher by $3 billion from the earlier announcement made in November 2011 for a five-year period.

The new investment will be utilized for setting up of new bottling plants, increasing bottling lines and back-end chain infrastructure as well as enhancing marketing operations in the country.

While we have always believed in the Indian growth story, India is now a key focus market for our company and system. We plan to invest $5 billion dollars in the India business between now and 2020. This represents an increase of $3 billion beyond what we had previously committed to investing in this market, Coca Cola Co Chairman and CEO Mr Muhtar Kent told reporters in New Delhi, PTI reported.

Coca Cola sales have been moving up and the company had reported a jump of 20 percent in their sales during the first quarter as compared to the year earlier. However, Coke, the flagship cola, still trails behind its rival Pepsi in the Indian market. Coke has a market share of around nine percent while Pepsi enjoys a market share of nearly 15 percent in the country.

However, the company's overall sales, which include Coke and the hugely popular aerated drinks such as Thums Up and Sprite, are higher than the sale of PepsiCo's products. Coca Cola has around 58 percent market share, while PepsiCo has around 38 percent of the market share for carbonated drinks in India.

Commenting on the company's immensely satisfactory growth in the Indian market, Kent said: Our India story is one of a remarkable turnaround. Six years ago we were not strong here at all. Today our India business aspires to be among the top five countries by volume in the entire Coca Cola system, PTI reported.

The country stands at the seventh spot presently, up from 16 or 17 in 2005-2006.

Coca Cola has 56 plants in India that include 21 franchise plants,12 contract packaging units, while 23 are owned by the company.