While pricing remains muted, the carbonated soft drink category continued to slide with sales declining by 2.4 percent in a year-over-year comparison for the four weeks ending on October 27, according to Nielsen Scantrack Enhanced FDMx data released in a new report from Morgan Stanley.
Yet while CSDs remain on a downward slope, beverages companies were buoyed by sales of bottled water (up 7.4 percent), ready to drink tea (+ 5.9), and isotonics (+ 5.7). However, the hottest category in beverages remains energy with category sales up 12.4 percent compared over the same timeframe last year.
The Coca-Cola Co., Inc. saw an overall bump of 0.4 percent in sales, performing well with its isotonic, juice, tea, and bottled water brands, while overall CSD sales tumbled by 1.9 percent. Coke saw a huge bump in energy drinks sales, which rose by nearly 24 percent.
PepsiCo slipped by 0.9 percent in CSD sales, but picked up the slack in isotonics (+1.4), refrigerated juices (+2), and bottled water (+3.7).
Sales of Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS) declined by 1.0 percent, as the company continues to endure losses in isotonics (-16.1 percent), and shelf stable juices (-2.6 percent). And despite gains in its line of its ten calorie line of drinks, overall sales of DPS diet brands slid by 4.2 percent. DPS did, however, see an upswing of 4.9 percent in sales of its RTD teas.
