Pepsi Americas Romania, the second biggest player in the domestic soft drinks industry, is likely to tap into new market segments with products from PepsiCo's international portfolio.
"The partnership with PepsiCo, a company with a huge product portfolio and a capacity to innovate is giving us virtually unlimited possibilities to bring new soft drink categories to Romania," says Mike Holmes, Pepsi Americas Romania chairman.
One of the market segments the company is considering at present is that of energy drinks, but the manager says no decision has been made as yet.
On the Romanian market, Pepsi Americas has so far gained a strong foothold on the segments of carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, where it holds a leading position. The only brands distributed by the company that are not part of PepsiCo's portfolio are Prigat and Roua Muntilor.
H1 figures reported by the company on the Stock Exchange point to a 16% advance (in volume) of carbonated drinks distributed in Romania against the first 6 months of 2007, while non-carbonated drinks in the portfolio rose by 8%. "On the segment of non-carbonated juices, we had to make a fundamental tactical change in packaging. We'll have further projects of this type domestically to secure growth above the market rate," Holmes also says.
Holmes says the soft drinks market needs to be analysed in segments, and not as a whole. "2007 was a very dynamic year, which brought explosive growth on all the segments of the domestic soft drinks market. This year, the trend is continuing, but on certain segments there are more moderate increases," states Holmes.
Pepsi Americas Romania last year reached 195m-euro turnover, up 20.2% from 2006, while its net income rose by 150%, to 33.7m euros, in line with data the company sent to the Finance Ministry.
Pepsi Americas Romania
Is likely
