Mad About Markets: Is the fizz intact in the non-alcoholic beverage market?

The non-alcoholic beverage market in India is valued at $17 billion. Carbonated drinks account for over 40 percent, followed by packaged water, juices and nectars, and so on. If you take out packaged water, the industry is at $12 billion now, and is expected to more than double by 2030 to $20 billion.

In the carbonated drinks segment -- India loves cola, and lemonade, that is, lime-based carbonates -- and these two account for the bulk of the overall carbonates market and is expected to experience high growth due to their increasing popularity as mixers in alcoholic drinks. Orange is a distant third accounting for $80 million.

Much like the global scenario, the beverages market in India is dominated by two giant players -- Coca-Cola and PepsiCo -- and these companies combined account for over 85 percent of the market share, especially in the carbonated-drinks segment.

In the fizzy drinks market, Coca-Cola accounts for over 51 percent of the share, Pepsi over 34 percent followed by the likes of Parle and Bisleri.In the non-carbonated space, Real commands the highest market share by far in the juices category. Tropicana is a distant second, ITC’s brand B Natural has less than 8 percent share and then you have a relatively younger company, Hector Beverages’ Paperboat, with a little over 2 percent market share. Patanjali has about 0.1 percent.

Saurabh Munjal, the Co-founder and CEO of Lahori; Neeraj Kakkar, Co-founder and CEO of Hector Beverages, which owns the Paper Boat brand; and Aneesh Bhasin, the Co-founder of Svami discuss opportunities and challenges in non-alcoholic beverages market.

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