DRINKS maker Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines Inc. plans to expand its distribution centers in the Philippines and product offerings as the company tries to keep up with competition. Pepsi Philippines, which sells its namesake soft-drink brand and other products such as Gatorade, energy drink Sting and Tropicana fruit juices, said it hopes to expand the current distribution network of 500,000 locations by about 12 percent this year. Company President Partha Chakrabarti said it will also add three new lines in its existing manufacturing plants in Muntinlupa, Cebu and Davao this year and open a new facility in Santo Tomas, Batangas, by next year. With these new manufacturing lines, the company will around a total of 1,200 workers, or 300 for each new line. “We’ve always expanding. There are 1 million sari-sari stores in the Philippines and we just get half of them—the larger half, at least. And our target is to get more,” Chakrabarti told reporters at the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Friday. Chakarbarti said about half of the P4-billion capital expenditure allocation for the year will be spent on expanding the distribution network in the country, while the remaining half will be used for the new plant lines. He did not give additional details on the upcoming plant. The company admitted that while its cola product is not as strong as its main rival, it continues to lead the sector because of its wider portfolio of offerings. Pepsi Philippines said it corners more than 90 percent on the sports-drink category, while its energy drink is the second best-selling brand behind Tanduay group’s Cobra. Chakarbarti said the company was able to sell its soda product along with its juices and non-carbonated drinks including coconut water, at almost the same price without hurting margins. “Today I have a product portfolio, in which my Mountain Dew sells at P10 [per bottle] as well as my Gatorade. We make the two affordable and we make as much money [from the products],” he said. About 70 percent of the company comes from carbonated drinks, and the rest are from non-carbonated ones. A third of Pepsi Philippines is owned by South Korea’s Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co. Ltd. and another 29.4 percent is owned by Quaker Global Investments B.V., the investment vehicle of the PepsiCo Inc. The company is the exclusive bottler and distributor of Pepsi and Lotte products in the Philippines and also Unilever’s Lipton brand until2017. For the first quarter of the year, the company reported a net income of P270 million, a 20-percent increase from the previous year, while its gross revenues reached P6 billion.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:40:19 +0000
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