L'eau en bouteille : acteurs et stratégies

Nestlé and Danone are the two main major players on the bottled water segment market in the world, competing against each other on certain markets, whereas differentiating from each other on others.
Before discussing the environment in which those two companies are evolving, we are first going to present the two leaders of the water industry in the world and their two "runner-up" Coca-Cola and Pepsico.

To begin with, we've got Danone :
After a merger between two French glass makers, BSN was created in 1966 and produced flat glass and packaging. Then, BSN diversified into food business, and acquired Kronenbourg brewery, Evian, and the Société Européenne de Brasserie. In 1975, BSN merged with Gervais Danone, which was at that time the French leading food manufacturer. In 1994, the group was renamed DANONE.

In 1997, the group decided to concentrate its business on 3 core activities:
- fresh dairy products (yoghourts, desserts and children' food), accounting for 47% of the turnover
- drinks (bottled water), accounting for 27%
- cereals and biscuits: 23%
... And so, decided to sell off non core businesses (withdrawal of glass packaging operation and sale of the beer business).
Today, Danone is the world leader in terms of sales (in volume) on the bottled water market. It owns 2 of the 5 leading brands ( Evian and Volvic), and the top selling brand of bottled water in Indonesia.
Its global market share in bottled water rise 11%, which accounts for 16.3 billion litres of water sold in a year. Its global turnover for the year 2002 is of 13.5 billion euro.