Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

Coca Cola began operating in other countries in 1906. The first countries they expanded to were Canada, Cuba, and Panama; however, after Fidel Castro’s government began seizing private assets from cuba in the 1960s, Coca Cola has not been sold there ever since.

In 1912 the company expanded to the Philippines. Since then coca cola has been operating in many countries around the world. Today coca cola gets 25% of sales from Latin America, 22% from Europe and the Middle East, 6% from Africa, 18% from Asia and 29% from North America. The company has remained successful in these countries due to the global availability, having bottlers in the country cut costs for importation and makes it easier to access the product.

Coca Cola is known for having ongoing innovation; they continuously promote and create new products to satisfy consumers. Coca cola plans to invest 30 billion dollars in markets around the world within the next five years. Infrastructure is a major factor in building Coca Cola into more cities. It is difficult to expand due to the lack of roads and electricity. Without infrastructure, it will be difficult to make coke available to lower class people living in places like China, India and Africa. Coca Cola currently has 53.1% of the international carbonated beverage market share, which makes them the leading carbonated beverage company. International marketing has created a lot of difficulties for Coca Cola over water sources.

In 2004, India blamed Coca Cola for depleting water wells for poor farmers in one of the bottling plants. The bottling plant was later shut down which negatively affected profits for the company. In 2011, Coca Cola purchased half of one of the biggest bottling companies in the United Arab Emirates and opened up its 42^nd bottling plant in china months later. The expansion into the UAE and china will yield huge profits and new customers for the company. Coca Cola is currently working on expanding to Cuba and North Korea where its products are not sold; however, they will face difficulties finding partners for production and distribution.