Lockdown in India hit Coca-Cola’s global volumes: CEO James Quincey

NEW DELHI: Beverage maker Coca-Cola said late Tuesday the lockdown in India dragged down its unit case volumes in its bottling investment group (or company’s owned bottling operations) across world markets for the January-March 2020 quarter.

“In some markets like India, the severity of social distancing measures has negatively impacted consumption simply due to the significant reduction in shopping trips,” Coca-Cola global chief executive James Quincey said at a post earnings call.

The maker of Coca-Cola and Thums Up cola and Minute Maid juices said unit case volume declined 5% driven by India across its bottling investment ecosystem. It said in an earnings statement that globally volumes declined 25% on account of the coronavirus.


Quincey said at this stage it is too early to determine at what level at-home trends will stay like that.

“Given that away-from-home channels represent approximately half of the company’s revenues, the company expects the net effect of these consumer purchase patterns to have a significant impact on second quarter results," Coca-Cola said in the earnings statement.

The Indian government had announced a lockdown starting March 25 to contain the spread of Covid-19.