Uncle Sam
05-13-2004, 11:46 AM
**...I'd like to buy the world a Wahaha, and keep it company...***
Just doesn't sound right...... :lol:
Yahoo! (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=4&u=/nm/20040513/od_nm/china_cola_dc)
SHANGHAI (*******) - China's largest beverage maker is going where no other Chinese firm has gone before -- it has shipped the first retail batch of its own cola to the home of the carbonated soft drink, the United States.
Hangzhou Wahaha Group, whose 170,000-bottle shipment is on the way to New York and Los Angeles, will have to slug it out with giants PepsiCo Inc and Coca-Cola Co in the mammoth $64 billion market.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo own eight of the top 10 soft drink brands in the United States, while British sweets and drink maker Cadbury Schweppes Plc claims the remainder.
"We have sent our first shipment of Future Cola to the United States and it should get there in June," the spokesman said.
Wahaha, which translates as "laughing baby" and comes from a popular children's folk song, decided to enter the U.S. cola market following the success of its milk exports last year, on which the spokesman declined to provide details.
She also declined to say what the U.S. retail price of Future Cola would be, but a 600-ml bottle sells for about two yuan (24 U.S. cents) in China.
Wahaha is regarded as a private enterprise despite the state holding a passive stake, and has attracted plant investment from French food group Danone totaling $120 million.
Its products include bottled water, teas, milk drinks and Future Cola, whose label bears a red-and-white color scheme similar to that of Coke.
Coca-Cola dominates the Chinese market with a share of 24 percent in 2003, while Future Cola had a seven percent share, the official English-language Shanghai Daily said.
Just doesn't sound right...... :lol:
Yahoo! (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=4&u=/nm/20040513/od_nm/china_cola_dc)
SHANGHAI (*******) - China's largest beverage maker is going where no other Chinese firm has gone before -- it has shipped the first retail batch of its own cola to the home of the carbonated soft drink, the United States.
Hangzhou Wahaha Group, whose 170,000-bottle shipment is on the way to New York and Los Angeles, will have to slug it out with giants PepsiCo Inc and Coca-Cola Co in the mammoth $64 billion market.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo own eight of the top 10 soft drink brands in the United States, while British sweets and drink maker Cadbury Schweppes Plc claims the remainder.
"We have sent our first shipment of Future Cola to the United States and it should get there in June," the spokesman said.
Wahaha, which translates as "laughing baby" and comes from a popular children's folk song, decided to enter the U.S. cola market following the success of its milk exports last year, on which the spokesman declined to provide details.
She also declined to say what the U.S. retail price of Future Cola would be, but a 600-ml bottle sells for about two yuan (24 U.S. cents) in China.
Wahaha is regarded as a private enterprise despite the state holding a passive stake, and has attracted plant investment from French food group Danone totaling $120 million.
Its products include bottled water, teas, milk drinks and Future Cola, whose label bears a red-and-white color scheme similar to that of Coke.
Coca-Cola dominates the Chinese market with a share of 24 percent in 2003, while Future Cola had a seven percent share, the official English-language Shanghai Daily said.