Sports Drinks in Croatia

PROSPECTS

Sports drinks generate little excitement, but dedicated users and potentially expanded users seeking to lose weight point to ongoing, steady growth

As seen in previous years, sports, the second smallest category in soft drinks after RTD coffee, generated little excitement in 2019. Despite an upswing in the fitness trend in Croatia consumption of these products has not significantly increased.

Sports drinks continue to struggle to successfully distinguish themselves as better alternatives to Cedevita and other products

In Croatia, consumers have a hard time distinguishing sports drinks from some other soft drinks categories, such as functional bottled water and juice drinks. However, particularly, the influence of the perception that powder concentrates are suitable surrogates for sports drinks cannot be ignored.

High level of obese/overweight consumers seeking to change their lifestyles along with higher exposure to non-isotonic sports drinks expected to boost demand

Still, growth is continuing as the number of people are rethinking their lifestyle and starting to take better care of their bodies. The notably high share of obese and overweight people in Croatia has created a wide pool of potential future users.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Vindija maintains its leading volume share in a consolidated field, despite competition from Coca-Cola’s Powerade

Mirroring the lack of action on the market, the sports drinks competitive landscape is also static. It is very consolidated and scarce with only four players holding notable value shares; three of them are local.

Despite its advantages including dedicated fridges, Coca-Cola is losing share to other players

The leader in value size and second-ranked player in volume size, the multinational Coca-Cola Beverages Hrvatska maintains its strength in sports drinks basically by reserving a spot for Powerade in all of its dedicated point-of-sale fridges, which are ubiquitous in Croatia’s modern retailing channels. This makes it convenient for a potential buyer to pick up a sports drink while browsing for other types of refreshment.

Price will determine future position of local players

The remaining group of local companies is taking the approach of low prices: as basically all competitors are offering predominantly isotonic drinks, there are not many unique selling points between the products. Thus, price plays an important role.

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