Coca Cola India mulls strategic investments in the next six to eight months for increasing capacity, network distribution, sales, infrastructure and marketing. The company has so far invested $1.35 billion in the country. Coca-Cola India president & CEO (South West Asia) Atul Singh tells BV Mahalakshmi about the potential in the domestic market and infusion plan.
How important is India for the company? Will there be fresh capital infusion?
We have a strong growth story in the domestic market in the last 17 consecutive quarters, of which 13 quarters witnessed double-digit growth. We will continue to maintain the same momentum with our diverse portfolio. We have invested about $1.35 billion in India till date including the $250 million announced about two years back. We may look at strategic investments in India which would increasing capacities, improving the backward integration activities and increase social impact programmes.
Will soaring input cost lead to price hike?
We don’t want to talk about any price change issues at this juncture. We continue to evaluate a broad range of package formats, which can have different costing inputs. But again, sometimes costs may go up, lets say phenomenal, but does not have a long-term impact. So we may come up with one particular decision and we continue to evaluate options. However, food inflation is a concern for all of us. We are monitoring the situation and we just hope that it will come around to the normal level.
How do you plan to help the retailers of your brands?
We provide extensive support to community programs across the country with a focus on education, health and water conservation. We have launched innovative training initiatives for over 57,000 retailers which include both mom and pop small grocery shop owners. The program is called as Parivartan In addition to it, there is a Coca-Cola University’s retailer training program which is a mobile program in a bus to train retailers in tier II and tier III towns.
We have introduced Nestea, Maaza Milky Delite and Burn in addition to our existing products through a network of more than one million outlets. We are planning to foray into the 100% juice market under our existing Minute Maid brand in 2011 with more products.
Have you signed Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador for Coca-Cola India?
No, we have not yet signed as of now.
Despite the global economic recession and a consequent slowdown in the Indian economy, organised retail continued to make headway. In this context, how do you look at 100% FDI in the retail segment?
There is an on-going debate on FDI in retail sector. In India, large format stores play a key role in the retail trade. However, the mom and pop stores also have an important role. Urbanisation has increased retail trade. The domestic market continues to attract global players as there are enough opportunities and there is a success story even during global crisis.