Philippines' soft drinks market beats recession

摘要

Soft drinks sales in the Philippines are fighting back against the long-term effects of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, plus an uncertain political situation and an ongoing loss of consumer confidence. Soft drinks volumes increased by more than 2 percent in 2001, 1 percent ahead of all commercial beverages, says a report from industry analysts Canadean. Although the Philippines has very high levels of beverage consumption indicating some mature sectors, there has been a deterioration in sales since 1996 with the recent small rise in volume not matching population growth. Even soft drinks per capita consumption is predicted to have fallen to 57 litres from 65 litres in the period 1996 to end 2002, despite a minor upturn of 0.3 percentlast year. Soft drinks' resistance to economic and political stagnation has been powerfully fuelled by carbonates, which accounts for around one-third of all commercial beverage sales and almost three-quarters of soft drinks.