Pepsi expects 7% increase in soft drinks market this year

Although soft drinks consumption on the Romanian market slowed down its growth rate starting in the second half of last year, Mike Holmes, president of Pepsi Americas Romania, the second largest carbonated drinks bottler on the Romanian market, says this was to be expected since as early as 2006-2007. "Even in the absence of the current economic turmoil, the 20-30% rises that the soft drinks market used to record before 2008 could not be preserved for a very long time, because every market is cyclical," Holmes says. He expects the soft drinks market to rise by 7% in terms of volume this year against 2008. But can booming growth rates return, considering that local consumption per capita is much lower than the EU average? "Get me high temperatures in the summer, and I will be the happiest manager," Holmes says smilingly. "This is a season-dependent business. However, we cannot rely on weather forecasts when we make business plans". Pepsi's target for this year is to achieve a higher growth rate than that of the market. "However, I think we will move from a double-digit growth rate to a single digit one," Holmes adds.