Pepsi and Coca-Cola, two-digit sales declines in 2009

The two soft drinks industry giants, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, which account for three quarters of the domestic market together, saw their sales volumes slide by over 10% in 2009 in Romania, the first year when they coped with significant consumption drops domestically. Pepsi Americas, the second biggest player on the domestic non-alcoholic drinks market, with 202m-euro turnover in 2008, last year registered an over 10% decline in its sales volume on the Romanian market year-on-year. Its main competitor in Romania, Coca-Cola Hellenic, early this month reported 12% lower volumes sold in 2009 compared with 2008. In just one year, the soft drinks giants thus went from double-digit sales increases to declines of above 10% on the Romanian market, amid consumers' dwindling purchasing power. With similar decline paces domestically, Coca-Cola and Pepsi Americas thus did not see the gap between them widen, on a market valued at almost one billion euros in 2009.