Coke to boost India investment by $3 billion

coca-cola2-wiki.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Coca-Cola Co announced a further $3 billion in investment in India over the next eight years on Tuesday as the world's biggest soft drinks maker seeks to expand in a country where its flagship brand trails rival Pepsi.

The investment by Coca-Cola and its bottlers, on top of a $2 billion five-year plan announced in November, will hearten Indian officials who are trying to restore investor confidence after growth fell to a nine-year low in the first quarter.

Coca-Cola's announcement comes days after Swedish retailer IKEA, the world's largest furniture maker, said it would invest 1.5 billion euros to open 25 stores in Asia's third-largest economy over 15 to 20 years.

"We have increased the investment here because we think, there's potential here to stay ahead of the curve," Coca-Cola chairman and chief executive Muhtar Kent told reporters in New Delhi.

Coca-Cola and its bottlers have spent some $2 billion since the company returned to India in 1993 after pulling out in 1977 when a government ruling would have forced it to share its secret formula.

Coca-Cola lags rival PepsiCo's brand Pepsi in India's $10 billion beverages market and it has been trying to aggressively raise its market share - cutting some prices in the summer season for the first time since 2003.

"The brand that has been doing well for Coca-Cola is Thums Up," said an analyst with a foreign brokerage, who did not wish to be named, referring to a local cola brand owned by the Atlanta-based company.

Kent said Coca-Cola, which also sells brands such as Minute Maid juices and Nestea, was on track to meet its target of doubling its business in a decade with global investment alongside its bottlers of $30 billion in the next five years.

Shares in Coca-Cola closed down 0.23 per cent at $74.77 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/165424" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f2584be7fa14d094530418150ad5d9df" value="form-f2584be7fa14d094530418150ad5d9df" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85624628" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.