PepsiCo plans to
spend at least US$150m over 18 months to build six bottling plants, Bloomberg reported.
The plants would expand the annual bottling capacity of its China operation by about a third
to some 400m cases and help sales there maintain what the chairman called 'strong
double-digit growth'. One plant is nearing completion at Tianjin and construction has
begun on another in Jinan, Shandong province. The company declined to say where the
other four plants would be located.
PepsiCo, which currently has 14 plants producing
Pepsi, Seven-Up and Mountain Dew brands in China, has 17 percent of the soft drinks
market there. This is compared with 33 per cent for Coca-Cola, which has 30 bottling
plants producing Coke, Sprite, Fanta and other drinks.