Business - India;Coca-Cola leads over Pepsi

Ratna Bushan

NEW DELHI: The Thunder still rules. More than three decades after it was launched, Thums Up remains India’s largest selling aerated drink. It was created by Ramesh Chauhan and is now owned by Coca-Cola. Market research data by AC Nielsen, which now tracks both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, shows that, thanks to Thums Up, Sprite, Limca and Fanta, Coca-Cola India has a huge lead over rival PepsiCo across all categories of drinks-colas, orange, clear lime and cloudy lemon. While Coca-Cola India’s consolidated share of carbonated soft drinks is 57.8%, PepsiCo follows at a distant second with 35.6% share. Though an apple-to-apple comparison between both rivals may not be fair in the cola segment because Coca-Cola has two brands against PepsiCo’s one, Coca-Cola overshadows its rival across all other carbonated soft drink (CSD) segments. Brand Pepsi with 13.1% market share is the only brand in the PepsiCo portfolio to cross the 10% market mark. In contrast, four Coca-Cola brands have market shares of over 10%. After Thums Up, Coca-Cola’s second biggest brand is the clear lime Sprite with a 12.2% share, followed by cloudy lemon drink Limca at 10.9% and orange-flavoured Fanta at 10%. Two of Coca-Cola’s best-selling brands-Thums Up and Limca-were acquired from Mr Chauhan. However, its own brand Coke ranks third in the cola ranking-with an 8.2% share. Understandably then, Thums Up enjoys one of the largest shares of Coca-Cola India’s marketing and ad budgets. This is a far cry from the strategy adopted by the company soon after it had acquired Mr Chauhan’s brands in 1993, when it was accused of neglecting Thums Up on both distribution and marketing, promoting its own cola brand instead. However, that was then. Now, it is widely believed that Akshay Kumar, who endorses Thums Up, is Coca-Cola India’s most expensive celebrity endorser-ahead of Aamir Khan and Hrithik Roshan, both of which endorse brand Coke. To leverage its strong carbonation flavour, Thums Up’s positioning as a macho drink with advertising almost always hinging on dare devilry has worked well for the brand. Thums Up’s key markets include Andhra Pradesh, WB and Karnataka. Sprite’s mainstay markets are Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore while Fanta is popular in the Southern states. Officials of neither Coca-Cola nor PepsiCo commented on this story. Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are big advertising and marketing spenders. PepsiCo’s strongest brand after cola is Mirinda Orange at 8.9% against rival Fanta’s 10% share. The gap between Coca-Cola’s Sprite (12.2%) and PepsiCo’s 7 Up (at 5.8% share)-both clear lime brands-is wider. In the cloudy lemon segment, Coca-Cola’s Limca at 10.9% overshadows PepsiCo’s Mirinda cloudy lime, which barely manages a 0.4% share