In terms of actual units sold, does Mountain Dew [And all of its flavors*, Diet, Caffiene Free**, Code Red, Voltage etc.] outsell Pepsi [And all of it’s Cola flavors*** Diet, Wild Cherry, etc.]
*I’m not sure how you can count Baja Blast [The Taco Bell fountain flavor of Dew] I would like to know numbers for this, if someone can find them.
** Yes, you can find it for sale in Atlanta, among other markets. I personally call the variety pointless juice, but apparently there is a market for Dew sans caffeine.
*** Note: I am asking for Cola products only. Products that actually have Pepsi in the name. Sierra Mist might be sold by Pepsi, but it’s not “cola” in the sense I am using the term. Same would go for Tropicana Twister Orange, Mug root beer.
Let’s not even open the can of worms that is Dr.Pepper.
The linked article includes more data, such as number of cases sold, for those who want to do further analysis. Source is the trade publication “Beverage Digest.”
I don’t see how it could. Pepsi and Diet Pepsi outrank Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew, respectively, by a good few percentage points of market share, as per this article (small pdf).
To hear Coke talk about it, Mountain Dew is a thorn in their side. Surge is long gone, and Vault seems to be going the same way. I figured that the Caffeinated Citrus market was Dew’s, and as such, could take from Pepsi and Coke drinkers.
It’s a thorn in their side because they’ve never been able to get a foothold on that market. All of the drinks they’ve come up with to compete directly with Mountain Dew have failed. Their latest go at it is to push Mello Yello and I don’t think that’s faring any better than any of their other attempts.
But while Mountain Dew is certainly the king of that particular niche, it’s not really any serious threat to their dominance. Coke and Pepsi are the flagship brands, and while the success of Mountain Dew and Fanta are all well and good, they are still niche brands.
Basically it comes down to this: I know plenty of Coke/Pepsi drinkers who would never touch a Mountain Dew, but I’ve never met a Mountain Dew drinker who wouldn’t touch a Coke or Pepsi.
Fanta on that list surprises me. I see all of the others regularly but not Fanta so much (and orange soda is my default). Is it more of a regional brand or am I just unobservant?
In this part of the country, it is not unusual for the local convenience store to have, in the large wall of soda cooler space, one cooler devoted to Pepsi-bottled products (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, A & W Root Beer, whatever brand of orange soda is Pepsi, Cherry Pepsi, Brisk Tea), one cooler devoted to Coke-bottled products (similar to previous list, only Coke-version plus Mello Yello), and an entire cooler devoted solely to Diet and Regular Dew, with one rack of whatever odd flavors Dew is trying that month. Northeast Wyoming/Northwest South Dakota. My assumption is that, in the convenience stores at least, Mountain Dew outsells the others considerably.
Of course, coolers are being overtaken by the 500 varieties of identically-flavored energy drinks now.
IMHO, Fanta got considerable exposure as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I remembered it from a long time ago but hadn’t seen it in years until I deployed. Some of the younger guys had never seen it before. I’d venture to say that every deployed soldier saw cans or bottles of Fanta every day, and it was consumed in significant volumes so it seemed to be popular.
Despite the circumstances, that’s the best kind of advertising there is, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t have some effect on sales here in the US.