PepsiCo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi on Monday announced the company will invest about $5.5 billion to grow its business in India by 2020, following a similar investment announced by archrival Coca-Cola last year.
PepsiCo is trying to regain market share lost to Atlanta-based Coke in recent years in the highly competitive Asian market. According to Euromonitor data, Coca-Cola’s share of the carbonated soft drink market was nearly 61 percent in India last year, compared with 36.4 percent for PepsiCo.
“India is a country with huge potential and it remains an attractive, high-priority market for PepsiCo,” Nooyi, on a two-day visit to India, said in announcing the investment. Coca-Cola said it had no comment on PepsiCo’s announcement.
Coca-Cola said last year it planned to invest $5 billion in India by 2020 to boost growth — more than double the $2 billion it invested since re-entering the market in 1993. Coke left the country in 1977 to avoid divulging its secret formula and handing over control of the company’s local operations to an Indian subsidiary.
Coke’s Thums Up brand, acquired in 1993, and Sprite are the most popular carbonated beverages in India. PepsiCo’s flagship soft drink is more popular than Coca-Cola’s flagship soda.
