Coca-Cola Loses Market Share in India Due to Rising Aluminum and PET Costs, Supply Shortages

Amid fluctuations in the US-Iran conflict, the night session saw SHFE aluminum prices rise. Today, traders and downstream processing enterprises in central China mainly adopted a wait-and-see stance, with low purchase willingness, leading to sluggish market transactions. Some large suppliers held prices firm and held back from selling, while smaller suppliers showed weaker resolve to hold prices, resulting in a significant divergence between quotations and transactions. Ultimately, the actual transaction price range in the central China market was around a premium -100-140 yuan/mt against the SHFE aluminum August contract, with a continued weakening trend.

Metal costs have been continuously climbing, with the upward pressure being transmitted to the consumer end. Coca-Cola said that due to tight supply of aluminum cans and rising prices of aluminum and PET raw materials, its market share in India declined in Q2. As geopolitical conflicts disrupted energy transportation, the global aluminum supply chain became increasingly tight, and India even saw shortages of Diet Coke and panic buying by consumers. To address this situation, Coca-Cola enterprises transported large-sized aluminum cans from Southeast Asia to ensure supply and raised the selling prices of some products. In the price-sensitive mid-end category, the enterprise faced significant challenges, which became a major pain point. In response, Coca-Cola is actively adjusting its packaging and pricing strategies to try to regain market share. Although the Indian business is under some pressure in the short term, the enterprise remains optimistic about the long-term consumption prospects of the local market, and expects that sales volume of Diet Coke is likely to increase by about 10 times this year, though the current overall sales volume base is still relatively low.