Coca-Cola's Biggest Opportunity

The Coca-Cola Company (NYS: KO) is seemingly on top of the world. Its brand power is indisputable, and its global presence is massive. But increasingly fierce competition pops up and threatens the cola titan. I've created a premium report on Coca-Cola to help investors examine the company's future.

Below is an excerpt from the report, which highlights the key opportunity for the company. It's just a sample of one section, but we hope you find it useful.

Opportunity
It's a formidable task for a $172-billion-market-cap company with $50 billion in annual revenues to grow significantly more. But Coca-Cola sees this as a feasible challenge. The company is placing major emphasis on its 2020 Vision, an initiative to double its revenues over this decade. The biggest opportunities for Coke are outside the U.S. In supporting this lofty growth goal, the company will invest $30 billion worldwide -- most predominantly in developing markets such as China, India, Russia, and the Middle East -- over the next five years. In a recent interview, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent noted, "[Roughly] 4% of the population of the world live in the U.S., and we're a consumer goods company. So we sell where the people are."

Coca-Cola's second-quarter earnings mirrored that statement. The company experienced unit case volume growth for emerging-market "BRIC" nations -- Brazil, Russian, India, and China grew at 6%, 9%, 20%, and 7%, respectively. While case volume outside the U.S. already stands at roughly 80% of Coke's worldwide volume, the company is aggressively pursuing growth in relatively untapped emerging markets.

The chart below illustrates exactly why Coke's emphasis is on emerging-market growth:

Source: Coca-Coca 2011 annual report. Per capita consumption based on an 8-oz serving.

Coke boasts only one-tenth of the market penetration in India as it has in the U.S., yet India contains nearly four times the population! It should come as no surprise that the company is waging a fierce war with rival PepsiCo to gain market share in the Asian nation. While U.S. customers guzzle more than one serving per day of Coke's products on average, Indian consumers merely sip one serving per month. Incidentally, the worldwide average per capita consumption of Coke's beverages is 92, so even if the Indian market grows only to this average level of consumption, this represents enormous potential for Coke. Expect aggressive future investments in emerging-market nations from Coke and its competitors.

Looking for more help?
That was just a small taste of our new premium report on Coca-Cola. If you're trying to figure out whether the company is a buy or sell, the report is an indispensible resource for investors seeking more information. Also, the report comes with updated quarterly guidance so you'll stay in the know. To get started, simply click here.

The article Coca-Cola's Biggest Opportunity originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Nicole Seghetti owns shares of PepsiCo. The Motley Fool owns shares of PepsiCo. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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