Name: Why Coca-Cola Dominates The Beverage Market
Uploaded: 2021-05-15T16:53:30.000Z
Duration: 14 min 22 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

With more than 1.9 billion drinks served every day, Coca

Cola is one of the world's largest beverage companies. From

its humble beginnings selling a single product at a drugstore

for five cents a glass, the company now has a roster of 200

brands that includes Coke, Fanta, and Sprite. But with US

soda consumption on the decline, the soft drink maker has been

forced to pivot. In 2021, Coke launched Topo Chico hard

seltzer, the company's first move into alcoholic beverages in

the US in almost four decades. The company has also made recent

investments into the sports performance drink category with

Body Armor and the purchase of UK coffeemaker Costa. And while

the pandemic has caused major disruptions in the first quarter

of 2021 Coke reported net revenue was up 5% to $9 billion

We were very focused over the last 12 months on focusing on

really improving our marketing, we cut the portfolio of brands

in half. We got really focused on our innovation pipeline, we

work with our bottlers to really support the customers in new and

different ways where they're open. And the sum of all that,

along with a new organization we've stood off has allowed us

as you say, to come back to the pre pandemic levels.

Coke is eagerly anticipating some reopenings and vaccine

rollouts. In the meantime, it faces a number of challenges,

including further COVID-19 disruptions and ongoing tax

litigation with the IRS. In November 2020, a US tax court

said that Coca Cola had to pay the bulk of its $3.4 billion tax

bill. Coke said it would ultimately prevail in litigation

with the IRS, but that is potential liability could be as

high as $12 billion. So after 135 years in business, can the

soft drink giant stay on top? And what will the secular

decline of sugar sweetened beverages in the US mean for the

Coca Cola traces its history to a soda fountain in Atlanta,

Georgia. In 1886, pharmacist John Pemberton created a carmel

colored syrup took the mixture to a nearby drugstore, where

carbonated water was added, and the drink sold for five cents a

glass. According to author Mark Pendergrast, the mixture

contained caffeine, lots of sugar, and for the first few

years, a small amount of extract from coke leaves, in other

And at first, their ads were primarily promoting it as a

medicine. It was supposed to cure morphine addiction for one

thing, which it did not in Pemberton's case unfortunately,

but it was supposed to be an aphrodisiac. It was supposed to

In 1888, Pemberton began to sell the recipe to a well capitalized

businessmen named Asa Candler, and by 1895 Coca Cola was

available in every state in the US. By the turn of the century,

Coca Cola adverts were appearing on clocks, trays, and posters

and the drink was moving from soda fountains and into bottles.

The company's advertising budget reach a million dollars in 1911,

the equivalent of about $27 million today,

And that became wildly successful by 1900-1910, there

were Coca Cola bottling plants in every small town not only in

By the 1920s and 30s, Coca Cola had reinvented itself as an all

American soft drink and was entering new markets abroad.

Exempted from sugar rationing during World War Two and in

support of GIs, the company since 64 portable bottling

plants around the globe, distributing more than 5 billion

bottles of Coca Cola. And it wasn't just Americans who are

hooked on sugary drinks. According to Pendergrast's book

for 'God Country and Coca Cola', in Germany with the supply of

key ingredients being curtailed due to the war, local operators

invented a new drink Fanta. The flavored beverage the first new

product from the company eventually made its way to the

US in 1960. Coke produced a slew of other new innovations too. In

1960, steel 12 ounce cans were introduced, in 1963 tab, the

company's first diet drink launched in 1971. The 'I'd like

to Buy the World of Coke' commercial aired, and 1982 saw

the debut of diet coke. In 1985, in an attempt to boost sales and

compete with rival Pepsi in the soda wars, the company

reformulated its classic soda and launched New Coke. The move

was a major misstep, with widespread disapproval from fans

and pundits alike. Just 79 days after the soda was launched the

company reversed course and the original formula was reinstated.

And while the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages in the

US was rising during the 1990s, the company was about to face an

even bigger threat. In the early 2000s, health and wellness

concerns rose to the top of most consumers agenda. Soda

The peak happened around in the early 2000s from a consumption

standpoint, if you look at per capita consumption, and then

At the same time that we started to see, carbonated soft drinks

decline in consumption was about the same time that we started to

see increased concerns about sugars and simple carbohydrates.

But despite that drop Americans and people everywhere were still

hooked on soda. Between 2011 and 2014, almost half of us adults

were drinking at least one sugar sweetened beverage a day.

The soda market in the US is a $38.5 billion dollar business

according to IBISWorld and includes companies like PepsiCo,

Keurig Dr. Pepper, and of course Coca Cola. With consumers mostly

stuck at home forgoing restaurants, concerts, and

sporting events, the pandemic has been a mixed bag for soft

drink makers. PepsiCo announced first quarter 2021 net sales

reach more than $14.8 billion almost 7% higher than a year

earlier, fueled by pandemic snacking in its Frito Lay

division and higher sales of drinks like Bubly sparkling

water and Starbucks ready to drink coffees. With more people

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Why Coca-Cola Dominates The Beverage Market

equivalent

pandemic

revenue

expect