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Despite inflationary pressures, Coca-Cola on Monday said the focus on ramping up product availability across channels and leveraging on affordable offerings through single-serve packs had led to a strong performance in India in the first quarter.
“In India, the company is increasing its consumer base by expanding affordable offerings at key transaction-driving price points through the use of single-serve packages. In the first quarter, this strategy yielded strong results with more than 500 million incremental transactions added in India, up nearly 20 per cent, versus the prior year,” the beverage major said in its earnings statement.
It added that nearly 70 per cent of these “incremental transactions” were driven by small packages such as returnable glass bottles and affordable, single-serve PET packages. The company said this was part of its revenue growth management strategy being implemented in collaboration with its bottling partners.
The beverage major, which released its first quarter earnings for the three-month period ended April 1, said its global unit case volume was up 8 per cent and growth in developing and emerging markets was led by Brazil and India.
In an investor call, James Quincey, Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company said, “ In India, we drove excellence in integrated execution as consumer mobility improved across channels by stepping up product availability, adding approximately 2,40,000 outlets and over 50,000 coolers.”
“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 added.
In the Asia-Pacific region, unit case volume grew 4 per cent,driven by India and the Philippines, which partially offset the pressures seen in China due to a resurgence of Covid-19 cases.
Unit case volume growth is defined as the number of unit cases of beverage sold directly or indirectly by the company and its bottling partners.
On the performance of company-owned bottling operations, it said that unit case volume grew 8 per cent driven by strong growth in the key markets of India and Philippines.
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