Coca-Cola India anticipates that its homegrown juice brand Maaza may become a billion-dollar brand by around 2024, following two of its other products, Thums Up and Sprite, achieving the milestone.
The beverage giant was expecting Maaza to join the billion-dollar league in 2023. But, due to upwelling mango prices in 2022 as the weather played spoilsport, now the company expects this to happen around a year later.
Coca-Cola President (India and Southwest Asia) Sanket Ray said that they would love for the juice brand Maaza to become a billion-dollar brand and that is clearly an ambition. But it may take longer and may not happen next year. “With the surge in mango pulp prices, we do not know how next year will shape up, and if it happens next year, that will be good. But it should happen by 2024,” Ray said.
In January this year, Coca-Cola said its Indian soft drink brand Thums Up had become a billion-dollar brand in 2021. India is the fifth-largest market for Coca-Cola globally. Maaza is a mango-based drink made from the pulp of the Alphonso variety, which is known as the ‘King of Mangoes’ in India.
Ray said Coca-Cola has become the largest mango buyer in the country, and it is also now trying some other regional varieties of mangoes which have the potential to match the taste. Maaza’s business should end this year at around Rs 4,500 crore to Rs 5,000 crore.
Maaza was acquired by The Coca-Cola Company from Ramesh Chauhan of Parle Bisleri in 1993, along with brands like Thums Up, Limca, Citra, and Gold Spot, when the Atlanta-headquartered company re-entered the Indian market.