India’s richest man is stepping up a battle against Coca-Cola and Pepsi for the country’s fizzy drinks market with a 50-year-old brand last popular when the country’s economy was largely shut off to foreign business.
Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate Reliance Industries has launched a price war to promote Campa Cola, leaning on nationalist nostalgia to appeal to Indian consumers at a time of rising tensions between New Delhi and Washington.
The drink, which Reliance debuted three years ago with a price of Rs10 — about half that of rivals at the time — now has a 7 per cent market share in India, up from about 2 per cent in 2024, estimates analytics researcher GlobalData. Since then, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have introduced discounts on their drinks.