[ad_1]
ATLANTA — International growth plans for the Coca-Cola Co. depend on the country. The Atlanta-based company is promoting coffee and tea in China and has had success raising prices in Japan. Investing in bottlers is a focus globally, especially in India. In Mexico, a more mature market, Coca-Cola is giving consumers more packaging options.
Henrique Braun, president of international development, provided details on Coca-Cola’s international plans Dec. 5 at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference.
In China, Minute Maid Pulpy is a leading juice brand.
“We’re also tapping into ready-to-drink coffee and ready-to-drink tea on the premium side that we believe these are the core categories that we can have the right in to continue to push forward,” Mr. Braun said.
He said coffee also is a big category in Japan, which until recently had been in a deflationary stage for decades.
“When we had the opportunity to take price and the inflation came, we were the first ones actually to go and start (on) that journey,” he said.
Coca-Cola has products in almost a million vending machines in Japan.
“We have a platform called Coke One that actually gets information from the transactions, and that helps us to get insights directly into our RGM (revenue growth management) algorithm so that we can not only provide different products or different pricing (but also) different sizes, packages within that channel,” Mr. Braun said.
In Asia Pacific in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, unit case volume was comparable to the previous year’s third quarter as a decline in water offset growth in other beverage categories.
Unit case volume in bottling investments increased 2% in the quarter, driven by growth in India and the Philippines.
“So, the time that we spend in (India) is to make sure that the team has full support to continue to invest in the bottlers ahead of the curve,” Mr. Braun said. “They are. The bottlers are very excited.”
Coca-Cola has had a presence in Mexico for 97 years. Recent strategies have involved finding the right pricing and expanding choices of multipack, Mr. Braun said. Unit case volume in Latin America in the third quarter increased 7%, led by Mexico and Brazil.
[ad_2]
Source link