a's growth in the region. Pepsi's 5 Saudi factories worked 24 hours a day to keep the troops refreshed. The most significant blow to Coca-Cola's return to the desert, however, came at the end of the war, when General Norman Schwarzkopf was shown signing the cease-fire with a can of diet Pepsi in his hand. Coca-Cola aims to control 35% of the Saudi market by the year 2000. Coca-Cola, which plans to pour over $100 million into the Saudi market, is focusing on marketing to get there. Recently, it shipped some 20,000 red coolers into Saudi Arabia over the last 9 months. Also, Coca-Cola put $1 million into sponsoring the Saudi World Cup soccer team. This alone has doubled Coca-Cola's market share to almost 15%. America's Reynolds Company is among the investors looking to cash in on Coca-Cola's return to Saudi Arabia. The company is among the investors in a new factory which, by 1996, will be producing 1.2 billion Coca-Cola cans per year. This equates to nearly 100 cans for every Saudi in the country. Pepsi, trying to fight off the Coca-Cola onslaught, has responded with deep discounting.Coke and Pepsi in India:Coca-Cola controlled the Indian market until 1977, when the Janata Party beat the Congress Party of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. To punish Coca-Cola's principal bottler, a Congress Party stalwart and longtime Gandhi supporter, the Janata government demanded that Coca-Cola transfer its syrup formula to an Indian subsidiary (Chakravarty, 43). Coca-Cola balked and withdrew from the country. India, now left without both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, became a protected market. In the meantime, India's two largest soft-drink producers have gotten rich and lazy while controlling 80% of the Indian market. These domestic producers have little incentive to expand their plants or develop the country's potentially enormous market (Chakravarty, 43). Some analysts reason that the Indian market may be more lucrative than the Chines...
