Coca-cola Enterprises, Inc.
Producing and distributing nonalcoholic beverages
Serving a market of approximately 405 million consumers throughout North America,
Great Britain, continental France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and
Monaco
Being the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler, having acquired other bottlers
since 1986 at an aggregate cost (including assumed and issued debt) of approximately
$14.6 billion
Representing approximately 21% of Coca-Cola product volume worldwide
We were incorporated in Delaware in 1944 as a wholly owned subsidiary of The
Coca-Cola Company.
Our bottling territories in North America and Europe contained approximately
405 million people at the end of 2003. We sold approximately 43 billion bottles
and cans (or 2.0 billion physical cases) throughout our territories in 2003.
Products licensed to us through The Coca-Cola Company and its affiliates and
joint ventures represented about 93% of this volume.
We have perpetual bottling rights within the United States for products with
the name “Coca-Cola.” For substantially all other products within the United
States, and all products elsewhere, the bottling rights have stated expiration
dates. However, for all bottling rights granted by The Coca-Cola Company with
stated expiration dates, we believe our interdependent relationship with The
Coca-Cola Company and the substantial cost and disruption that would be caused
by nonrenewals of these licenses ensure that they will be renewed upon expiration.
The terms of these licenses are discussed in more detail in the sections of
this report entitled “North American Beverage Agreements” and “European Beverage
Agreements.”
Approximately 54% of our North American bottle and can volume, and approximately
40% of our European bottle and can volume, is sold through the supermarket channel.
The supermarket industry is in the process of consolidating, and a few chains
control a significant amount of the volume. The loss of one or more chains as
a customer could have a material adverse effect upon our business, but we believe
that any such loss in North America would be unlikely, because of our products’
proven ability to bring retail traffic into the supermarket and the resulting
benefits to the store, and because we are the only source for our bottle and
can products within our exclusive territories. Within the European Union, however,
our customers can order from any other Coca-Cola bottler within the European
Union, some of which may have lower prices than our European bottlers.
Competition
The nonalcoholic beverage category of the commercial beverages industry in
which we compete is highly competitive. We face competitors that differ not
only between our North American and European territories, but also within individual
markets in these territories. Moreover, competition exists not only in this
category but also between the nonalcoholic and alcoholic categories.
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