Hot drinks grow fastest in MEA, coconut water market hits double digits

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Both reports include updated figures for 2016, latest forecasts that now extend to 2021 and size and brand/company share data for 80 different countries.

Hot drinks

The Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America will represent 68% of global hot drinks retail sales growth over the next five years. Asia Pacific is forecasted to grow the most in absolute value terms from 2016 to 2021, adding $7.6 billion, while the Middle East and Africa will grow the fastest at 5% annually.

Global consumers drank an average of 230 cups of tea, 134 cups of coffee and 36 cups of other hot drinks at retail and foodservice channels in 2016. Although tea is the most consumed hot beverage worldwide, coffee accounts for 58% of global hot drinks retail sales, compared to tea at 30%.

“Tea consumption was led by Turkey, which saw per capita consumption of 1,793 cups per person,” says Matthew Barry, beverages analyst at Euromonitor International. “The Swedes were the most enthusiastic coffee consumers at 1,308 cups.”

Soft drinks

For the soft drinks industry, 2016 proved to be a year of aggressive innovation to meet new consumer needs. Despite changing consumer preferences, global soft drinks consumption grew 3% from 2015 to 2016, reflecting steady growth from previous years.

The category hierarchy for carbonates has been simplified and, for the first time, coconut and other plant-based water sizes are researched and published separately within the juice segment. These were the top performing cold beverage globally and the only soft drink to register double-digit consumption growth at 19% last year.

For the soft drinks industry as a whole, 2016 proved to be a year of changing consumer attitudes and aggressive innovation to meet new consumer needs. Traditional category lines continue to blur or disappear. Instability in demand will necessitate a rethink in how big beverage brands reach their consumers, how they responsibly meet nutritional needs with their products and how they create profitable growth strategies as consumption declines in some areas and with some consumer segments.

“The surging demand for packaged, convenient and enhanced water products is the new engine for the beverages industry,” says Howard Telford, senior beverages analyst at Euromonitor International. “Energy drinks, ready-to-drink brewed beverages and super-premium juices – most notably, coconut water – were all top global performers.”