Water will be the biggest selling non-alcoholic drink

Amid the increasingly exotic drinks available at retail, since coconut water and lime to cardamom, pomegranate and blueberry, one with so many sales that barely to the shelves: water.
This year, global sales of plain bottled water will overcome the carbonated soft drinks for the first time, according to the market research group Canadean.
Competition from mass producers-Danone, of France; Nestle, of Switzerland; and Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, of the United States-for market share is intense.
Sales of bottled water grew at an annual pace of 6% since 2008, compared to 1.3% of carbonated beverages.
This growth will drive sales of water to 238 billion gallons by the end of the year, above the forecast of Canadean for carbonated, from 227 billion liters. The water thus becomes the biggest selling non-alcoholic drink.
Generation Y consumers, mainly in developed countries, are increasingly worried about the ingestion of additives and processed products. In drinks, came to prefer bottled water instead of soft drinks.
But the strongest growth is coming from Asia, especially China and India, where Governments find it difficult to provide consistently reliable piped water to growing cities. Middle-class families, when they can afford the price, opt for bottled water.
The consumption of the product in China nearly doubled in five years, of 17 billion to 33 billion liters, according to Euromonitor, another research firm.
Danone, for example, sells more water than food for babies in China, driven by brand flavored Mizone.
The Finance Director of Danone, Cecile Cabanis, considers Asia a "growth engine" for the sales of water, also strong in Indonesia.
Bottled water, whose sales have suffered in the developed countries during the recession, has been the line of business that had greater expansion in Danone in 2014. Sales are up more than 10% a year from 2011.
Some analysts doubt that pace-flavoured waters pulled, that represent 40% of the water Division of Danone-can be kept, but the company maintains that sales are "very resilient".
The French group raised its market share of waters in the last five years, reaching just over 10%, in part because expanded spending on advertising, according to Euromonitor.
Outside Asia, the u.s. is the largest market with breakthrough expansion similar to that of emerging countries, according to Marco Settembri, Chief Executive of Nestle Waters unit, which entered the market in 1992, when he bought the Perrier-Vittel.
While the unit of Danone waters is stronger in emerging countries, the Nestlé sells most of its waters in developed markets.
Pure Life brand's sales of Swiss group have grown so much in the USA-where the company obtained half of 7.4 billion Swiss francs ($ 7.9 billion) obtained with its total sales of water-that in 2014 the Nestlé overcame the Dr Pepper Snapple, 7Up soft drink manufacturer, as third-largest nonalcoholic beverage company (behind Coca-Cola and PepsiCo) in the USA According to the industry newsletter American Beverage Digest.
"There's a huge growth in the category of u.s. waters, pulled by the concern about health and obesity," says Settembri.
Sales of carbonated soft drinks fell for the tenth consecutive year in the USA in 2014, with the fall in volume in the last ten years was 14 percent, according to Beverage Digest.
Coca-Cola, which tries to reduce its dependence on carbonated drinks, released a Smartwater, "steam distilled water with electrolytes", in the United Kingdom, another big market, where it also sells its Vitaminwater.
Sales of bottled water have risen 10% in the year to March in the United Kingdom, according to the market research firm Nielsen.
In emerging countries population don't trust tap water, and in mature markets, young wants to be healthy.
The entry of Smartwater in the uk market in 2014, takes place ten years after the unsuccessful launch of the brand Dasani, Coca-Cola also. The Atlanta company withdrew from the market after weeks of release it for fear of contamination. The brand had already been ridiculed by the British media as being little more than a tap water improved and more expensive.
Some manufacturers of beverages, such as Britvic, the United Kingdom, were left out of the rising tide of water. The water is "a category in which it is not essential for us," said the company in November, something which contributed to a fall of 5% by volume, sales of non-carbonated drinks operations, such as J20 and Robinsons marks.
The battle between industry leaders, intense in emerging countries, arrived at rays of open hostility.
In Mexico, Danone, which owns Evian and Badoit, many other local brands, dispute a price war since last year, after the Government imposed a tax on carbonated drinks with sugar.
In February, the Chief Executive of Danone, Emmanuel Faber, accused Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to "destroy value" by strengthening its distribution of water in Mexico to offset the fall in sales of soft drinks, affected by the tax.
Although the fruit flavored waters of Danone also have been affected, because they are sweetened, the tax has had a greater impact on the manufacturers of soft drinks.
"Therefore, we are facing a price competition in the waters that turned into certain negative sales for us in Mexico [water Division] last year," says Faber.
Defend market share is important because the scope for raising prices of gas-free water that represents 82% of the volumes sold-tends to be low, since the product is very similar among the different brands.
"Bottled water dilutes the Group margins," says Fintan Ryan, an analyst at You. In Nestlé Waters operations have operating margin around 10%, compared to the average of 15% of the group. "There's no intellectual property involved and it's difficult to put an active capital in a business that is thinner. In General, however, has a very high growth. "
Settembri, Nestlé, claims that the distribution is vital to profitability. "The banks depend on the model," he adds. "To make money with the waters, it is crucial that the production is close to areas of demand, to reduce the cost of transportation."
The demand for water bottles seems to have come to stay. According to Canadean, the prospects remain bright, with a medium to strong growth of two digits expected at least until the end of 2019 ".
But the image of healthy and clean bottled water depicted by advertisers is confronted with the view of environmentalists.
Peter Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind our Obsession with Bottled Water (Bottled and Sold: the story behind our obsession with bottled water ") States that in developing countries," the answer to bad municipal tap water systems is not bottled water; municipal water systems is to build high-quality, reliable and low cost. "
"Bottled water will always be too expensive for the poorest populations and is a flagrant injustice that drinking water is available only for the rich," he adds.
In high-income countries, the tap water is drinkable, although it might not taste as good as the bottled version. "Although it is better to drink bottled water than soft drinks with sugar, is even better-and cheaper-drink piped drinking water," said Gleick.
Nestle, whose Chairman, Peter Brabeck, defends the conservation of water, argues that the main competitor of bottled water, soft drink.
Settembri, Nestle Waters, says that if denied consumers drink bottled water they are going to go back for drinks with sugar or fruit juices instead of tap water.
F.x. of Mackenzie, who runs the global area of retail and healthcare of Goldman Sachs, says that there are several "companies working on developing technologies to improve the ability of consumers and water purification, so that they can do it at home and with a cost efficient". According to him, "this represents a risk for the long-term prospects of bottled water"