Coca-Cola remains top pop

By Skip Wollenberg
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Coca-Cola Co. is still tops by a wide margin in the $61.7 billion U.S. soft drink market even though it lost some ground last year.

Coca-Cola Classic and Pepsi, meanwhile, remained the two most popular carbonated soft drink brands even though consumers bought less of each of them, according to two independent reports released this week.

Carbonated soft drink sales rose 0.6 percent overall in the U.S. to just more than 10 million 192-ounce cases last year, according to the Beverage Digest-Maxwell report. That was faster than the 0.2 percent rise in 2000, but it trailed the industry's annual 2 to 3 percent growth rate in the 1990s.

Research firm Beverage Marketing Corp.'s report said overall sales volume rose 0.5 percent to nearly 10.3 million cases last year.

Michael Bellas, chairman of Beverage Marketing, said the tepid growth reflected increasing competition from non-carbonated beverages such as bottled water in the past few years.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola's carbonated soft drinks accounted for 43.7 percent of industry sales volume in 2001, down from 44.1 percent a year earlier, according the Beverage Digest-Maxwell figures.

The brands from Somers, N.Y.-based Pepsi-Cola accounted for 31.6 percent of the U.S. carbonated soft drink market, up from 31.4 percent in 2000, the report said.

The Dr Pepper/Seven Up division of Britain's Cadbury Schweppes PLC captured the third largest U.S. market share in 2001 at 15.6 percent, up from 14.7 percent a year earlier, the data showed.