U.S. soft drink market sees drop in volume; rise in dollar sales

BEDFORD HILLS, N.Y. Carbonated soft drink volumes in the United States slumped in 2007, but total dollar sales were up, according to a recent Beverage Digest report.

The report stated that the volume of national soft drink sales was down by 2.3 percent from the previous year. That figure is nearly four times the rate of decline in 2006 (0.6 percent) and about 10 times the drop in 2005 (0.2 percent). The total volume of soft drink sales for 2007 was just more than 9.9 billion cases, the report stated.

For 2007, Cadbury's volume was down 1.6 percent, while Coke was down 0.5 percent, but PepsiCo's volume crawled up 0.1 percent.

Total U.S. CSD market sales were up by 2.7 percent from 2006, totaling $72 billion.

The data provided by Beverage Digest covers fountain drinks, retail and vending machine sales and energy drink sales, but it does not include bottled water, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas.