RTD Tea in the Philippines
• The Ready-to-Drink (RTD) industry in the Philippines was relatively underdeveloped
back in 2004. Consumers mostly purchased carbonated soft drinks, which dominated store shelves, both in the modern and traditional trade.
• Also, at that time, the still or non carbonated beverages comprise only a small portion
of the beverage market. The products under this sector include energy drinks, iced tea and juices.
• However, the only brands dominating the RTD tea market were Nestea and Lipton but
these brands were quite pricy for regular consumption.
• In that same year, the Universal Robina Corporation saw an opportunity since
consumers became more conscious of what they ate and drank at the same time convenient and affordable, so, the URC launched a new product –C2.
• This resulted to other companies
C2: Number of bottles sold
After the launching, first month - 100,000 Over the next three years, monthly - 30,000,000
noticing the profitability of noncarbonated drinks, which brought forth many competitions adopting the same PET and similar pricing as the URC’s C2. • In 2010, the total RTD Tea industry was valued at 551.9 million pesos, with the various competitors producing a total of 487,323,943 bottles of tea annually. However, C2 is still considered as the market leader.
Source: RTD Tea Industry in the Philippines, Chan et al
• Since the introduction of the C2 in the market in 2004, the RTD tea market enjoyed a
steady volume growth.
Volume Growth per year, 2004-2011
12.00% 10.00% 8.00% 6.00% 4.00% 2.00% 0.00% 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Source: RTD Tea Industry in the Philippines, Chan et al
• As seen in the graph, there was an abrupt decrease in the volume growth percentage of
RTD teas. This was because of the aggressive behaviour of other categories such as the RTD fruit/vegetable juice and powdered tea concentrates. These categories introduced other healthier variants into