Coke is still a challenger brand in India and that mindset helps: John Murphy, Global President, Coca-Cola

New Delhi: Coca-Cola is "still a challenger brand in India", and it is also operating in this market with that mindset, the beverages maker's global president and chief financial officer, John Murphy, said at a recent consumer conference in Paris.

Addressing an analyst query about different roles that brands play or categories play in different markets, Murphy said: "India is a good example. Today we talk about the opportunity in India, brand Coca-Cola is still a challenger brand in India. And it's - one of the hardest tasks we have is to take on."

Coke, though the world's largest beverage brand valued at $106 billion, trails Thums Up cola and Sprite in India - both brands have crossed a billion dollars in annual sales in the local market.

Thums Up, which Coca-Cola acquired from Ramesh Chauhan's Parle in 1993, became a billion-dollar brand in 2021, led by its strong carbonation and affinity to spicy Indian palettes. It was also the first brand from Coca-Cola India to touch the milestone.

The company's global lemon flavoured beverage Sprite also crossed a billion dollars in sales in India the following year, which the company then attributed to locally adapted, occasion-based campaigns.

Trademark Coca-Cola, on the other hand, has been through frequent changes in positioning such as "thanda matlab", "open happiness" and "share a Coke". While some of these campaigns like "thanda matlab" were locally created, "happiness" is a theme adapted by different markets the brand is present in.

"In a place like India, we've actually taken on that challenger mindset to unleash the potential that it (brand Coke) has, and we're very pleased with the early stages of that," Murphy said at the Deutsche Bank Global Consumer Conference in Paris. "In other markets, it might have a different role to play and, therefore, the tactics that you deploy may be different, may be adapted accordingly," he added.

In India, the maker of the Coke, Thums Up and Sprite fizzy drinks, Minute Maid and Maaza juice drinks, Kinley water and Georgia coffee reported a 57% increase in consolidated profit to '722 crore in fiscal 2023, according to its filings with the Registrar of Companies accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler. Revenue from operations rose 45% to '4,521 crore.

Murphy called out India as one of the company's "most reliable markets for the last three or four years".

India is a top-five volume growth priority market for the Atlanta, US-based company. Murphy said in the last 3-4 years, there's been "tremendous consistency" with how the company was converting opportunities into value in different markets around the world. "That conversion is very, very much related to our ability to execute and to execute on a daily basis ... the ability to manage in an environment where there's always different puts and takes coming at you," he said.