VietNamNet Bridge – Though there are numerous bottled drink brands available, the bottled drink market now is the playing field of the big guys who have been fighting over every space on the market.

The bottled drink market in 2011 was believed to be “harder to do” than in 2010. However, the difficulties could not make manufacturers shrink back.

The attractive cake

Commenting about the global bottled drink market, MarketLine said though witnessing the expansion slowdown for five years, from 2010 to 2015, Asia Pacific still obtains the highest growth rate at 12 percent per annum, or over 35 billion dollars, surpassing the US and European markets.

In Vietnam, the British Datamonitor has predicted that by the end of 2014, the total revenue of the market would reach 279 million dollars with the average growth rate of six percent in 2009-2014. Meanwhile, the total output would be some 307 million liters.

Euromonitor International (EI) has predicted that the bottled drink industry would see the average growth rate of 16 percent per annum from 2010 to 2016.

Tran Xuan Hiep, Director of Satco, the company that owns Wami bottled water brand, said the market is still large enough. Satco’s production line has been always working at full capacity, putting out one million bottles a month. Hiep said Satco plans to increase the production capacity by two or three times to satisfy the market demand.

PepsiCo in late first quarter of 2012 announced that it put a factory in the Long Binh industrial zone in Bien Hoa City of Dong Nai province, which it bought from San Miguel, into operation with the capacity of 180,000 liters per annum.

Covering an area of 10 hectares, the biggest factory among the six ones of PepsiCo in Vietnam specializes in making fizzy drinks and Aquafina brand purified water. This is a part of the manufacturer’s plan to expand its investment in Vietnam, the market that, according to Saad Abdul Latif, Managing Director of PepsiCo in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, is always the market with greatest opportunities.

Commenting about the potentials of the Vietnamese bottled drink market, Melvin Leong, a consultancy expert of Frost & Sullivan has noted that the strong development of the tourism industry proves to be a good factor for the bottled drink market.

The cutthroat rivalry

However, the expert has advised investors to think twice before deciding to make investment in Vietnam. Though the market still has room for new comers, it has a lot of latent challenges. Small manufacturers can put out cheap products, which is the biggest threat to bigger companies in Vietnam.

In 2009, Nielsen Vietnam once released a market survey report, saying that La Vie brand products accounted for 31 percent of the market share, while Aquafina of PepsiCo came second with 30 percent. Meanwhile, the four biggest brands Lavie, Aquafina, Vinh Hao and Joy (now Dasani of Coca Cola Vietnam) held 80 percent of the market share.

Meanwhile, a report by a Vietnamese survey firm said in 2011, Pepsi led the market in terms of sales, while La Vie came the second and Khanh Hoa mineral water ranked the third.

To date, the Vietnamese market has got 1000 bottled water manufacturers. However, HIep of Satco said the well known brands just account for 0.5 percent.

Compiled by C. V