Coca Cola Ice cold in Alex
As one shark-eyed fund manager remarks: “I’m not interested in owning Coke when it’s got no more continents. But that’s 15 to 20 years from now.” The continent which Coke has got, for its best growth prospects, is of course our own, the thirsty motherland, where it is chasing down the 7-9% earnings growth it has promised shareholders. And it’s getting there – through the simple expedient of extending short-term credit to merchants, volumes in a test street in Alexandra, grew from 5,000 to 14,000 cases every year. In Kenya, a growing economy with a relatively westernised population, each punter drinks 39 servings of the fizzy brown liquid every year. In Mexico, which admittedly is Coke’s biggest market by volume, they positively inhale 663 servings each per annum.
Comment: The size of the prize is potentially enormous: Africa’s GDP is $1.6trillion – bigger than India, or Russia.