And the most popular soft drink is... water

Sometime this year bottled water consumption will globally trump all other soft drinks including carbonates, juices, energy, sports, concentrates, ready to drink teas and coffees to become the most consumed non-alcoholic cold drink.

Since 2007 bottled water consumption has increased 92% — this equates to very nearly 7% growth each year. In 2017 bottled water consumption was 418 billion litres while all other soft drinks accounted for 438 billion litres. But growth in soft drinks has only averaged around 2% each year since 2007, which means that bottled water is now higher than all other soft drinks combined.

It is hard to decide if this is a marketing triumph and a triumph for public health or an ecological nightmare.

The information comes from the Zenith Global globaldrinks.com database, which was originally introduced in 2000 and has become the definitive business planning reference for many companies in the beverage industry as well as others seeking to understand and compare national market characteristics against regional or global trends.

Zenith’s Richard Hall demonstrated the power of the database by comparing bottled water prices for five market segments over the past 10 years. “This shows that the vast majority of bottled water is not only healthy, convenient and local, it is also very affordably priced with virtually no increase in average prices during the past 10 years.

“The price of bulk water in packs over 10 L has consistently averaged out at US$0.15 or less per litre and the average for smaller packs of still water has not risen above US$0.65 per litre. Nevertheless, there is a strong premium for other waters, with sparkling water averaging up to US$0.97 per litre, flavoured water up to US$1.49 per litre and functional water up to US$1.95 per litre.

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