The Bottled Water Industry

Threat of entry of new competitors is low. Firstly, the competitors that currently exist are large, dominating companies who already own a huge market share of the industry. New entrants attempting to enter the market will have compete with established brands such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle. These brands have decades of experience in the food & beverage industry, have developed brand recognition & loyalty and have achieved low-cost production and distribution capabilities that cannot be easily matched. Secondly, it is expensive to initially develop the infrastructure to produce the product. The case states that prices for bottle-filling lines range from $125,000 to over $100 million, not to mention the costs associated with “source certification, road grading, and installation of pumping equipment …” which require approximately $300,000 worth of investment.
Threat of substitute products/services is high. Numerous bottled and non-bottled products that can easily substitute bottled water. The main factor that differentiates bottled water from other soft drinks is that it caters to a health-conscious market because it has no sugar and no calories. However, today, there are several healthy soft drinks that are ‘zero-sugar added’, ‘zero-calorie’ alternatives to water. Coke zero, crystal light powders, diet sodas, zero-calorie energy drinks, etc. are just some examples. Tap water is also a substitute product because many people simply trust the tap water of their municipality. Another substitute would be water filtration devices such as the Brita filter which filters tap water.
Bargaining buyer power is high. Firstly, there are many bottled water lines and many non-water alternatives to choose from. Secondly, there are no major switching costs for consumers; the price difference between Aquafina and Dasani, for example, are so