Hacker News Reader

Comment by mixedbit | Hacker News Reader

The incoming Q1 earning reports will show if these actions are mainstream enough to make a visible dent in companies quarterly earnings. For now, the already reported Tesla sales numbers in Europe are substantially down, but Tesla is the strongest target of the boycott. It will be interesting to see if consumer companies such as Coca Cola, Nike, Amazon also report a substantial drop in EU sales.

View on HN

It feels like there's always somebody campaigning for a boycott of some megacorp or other, but this time there's likely to be a breakout from the narrow activist circles (who already weren't buying Coca Cola, Nike, Amazon) into the mainstream public.

Tesla in particular are so easily targeted for "secondary picketing": people making it embarrasing to own a Tesla or just straight up targeting them for vandalism.

There were numbers released today about "A-brand" sales in supermarkets, unfortunately Coca-Cola is still at the top for revenue: https://nos.nl/artikel/2560913-omzet-a-merken-in-supermarkt-...

Which... I never realised, I didn't think soda was still so popular, let alone coca-cola and co.

I do find it hillarious that Red Bull outsells Heineken nowadays. And I'm happy to see Hertog Jan sells much better, it tastes much better than Heineken.

Q1 is waay too early for any of these things to manifest. it's easy not to buy a tesla. it's much harder to move your company from one supplier to another.

Q1 may start to show some effects, especially for the likes of Tesla who rely ~entirely on sales of big-ticket items to consumers (though I think Tesla's a special case here in any case; Musk's recent misbehaviour would be hurting it even outside the context of an incipient trade war). There aren't actually many US companies in that space with a big European market, though. Apple, maybe, but even then a lot of their sales would be non-consumer.

As you say, big effects for most companies, if they come, will come later.

But for consumer products, like Nike shoes, it is easy not to buy and there are many alternatives.

Not sure how much it gets consumed, but many places in Germany rather sell Fritz-Kola only.

...I've only ever seen Fritz-Kola as a Berlin phenomenon tbh. There are some other regional brands though (e.g. in the Eastern German parts you're likely to see Vita Cola next to Coca Cola - completely different taste though).

It's quite common in bars all over the Netherlands in my experience.

I used to see it in Irma in Denmark.

One of the Colas that tastes good enough to replace Coke in my experience.

I've seen it for sale in at least a couple of bars in Copenhagen.

A bar owner I know here says selling these more-premium sodas is a good way to make a bit of extra money on people who aren't buying alcohol — you can charge more for Fritz-Kola than for Coca-Cola.

A different bar owner I know chose Jolly Cola, avoiding an American product but keeping a low price.

I've seen a lot of Fritz-Kola in the St Pauli area of Hamburg. I prefer it to coke too.

Hamburg is also full of Fritz Kola. As this article[1] claims, Fritz Kola is the third largest cola brand in Germany. And it is exported in over 20 countries. They also search for bottling plants in Spain to produce drinks over there.

[1]: https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-konsumgueter...

Fritz Cola is the western Germany equivalent. The company is from Hamburg.

But in big supermarket chains you overwhelmingly find Coca Cola or the cheap house brand of the chain, at least when it is about big bottles or sixpacks. Sure, supermarkets like Edeka may also have alternatives like Afri Cola or what those are called, but big masses are Coca Cola.

As mentioned, not sure how much it gets consumed currently, lets see if we start going the Canada way.

yes but coca cola lost in the western market. they sell mostly in the poorer countries. dont forget its cheap as shit water with sugar. The premium feeling comes because of marketing

No it's still absolutely dominant in the western market - partly because they own a whole load of other brands, and they have absolutely unbeatable distribution. There's a few countries where Pepsi is more dominant. But the only place where a non-Coke/Pepsi soft drink is dominant is Scotland (AG Barr's Irn-Bru and other drinks). I think they even bought out the last other holdout (Peru's Inca-Cola)

Well, if you accept Irn-Bru as a Cola replacement then Germany already isn't a Cola country anymore. The vast majority of sodas consumed is rather of the Cola-Mix kind (there are two very common products named "Spezi" and a ton of smaller brands) and Apfelschorle. CocaCola dominates the Cola market only, the sum of all the other sodas is far greater.

Where are you getting those numbers from?

https://www.boeckler.de/fpdf/HBS-006670/p_study_hbs_368.pdf

That's a really good source (albeit from 2017), but while it does support your argument that sales by other companies dwarf those by Coca-Cola, the latter is still firmly in first place, with 3.3 billion liters sold -- as much as the companies placed 2 to 4 combined.

I guess Coca-Cola will not be replaced in the top position in any short to medium timeframe. While they will dwindle, I don't think one big competitor will gather their market share, rather a lot of small ones.

I am from germany and this is true. I can remember the 90s and 2000s where coca cola was totally dominant and the only thing you can get in bistros restaurants etc. but now only cheap places like döners serve coca cola. what I meant is that they are still one of the most sold brands in western europe but not as dominant as it was with a steady decline. While in other parts of the world they can sell their sugarwater without regulation and thats where they make money. the rest of the world wants a taste of the free world drink.

Coca-Cola completely dominates retail in Germany. The most recent numbers I could find[1] are from 2018, but I have no reason to believe the situation, you know, flipped on its head -- the top 3 lemonades were Coke, Coke Zero and Coke light, making up about 75% of the market. In 2022[2] Fritz had 2.9% market share. Maybe the market share is higher in restaurants, though I'd be shocked if it Fritz was even at 25%.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/es-gibt-ein-deutsc...

[2] https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/industrie/fritz-kola-der-coc...

Thanks for the overview, naturally tarifs might change that, see Canada, no US products any longer on big chains.

Coca cola is bottled locally. It does not make any sense to move water, sugar, nor the syroup.

Probably they move a bit of their secret sauce, but rest is probably sourced locally.

So impact of tariffs on coke in Germany is mininal.

During WW2 german bottlers missed some ingredients so they've started making Fanta.

Surely they ship [components of] the syrup because otherwise they have to ship the raw coca leaves? Is the global supply of coca extract processed by the Stepan company in USA?

Profits move the other way through IP payments.

We can cut off the bleeding of profits by buying products with locally owned IP.

The Wikipedia article on Stepan company says that they use 100 tons of leaves per year.

If we assume that the processed leaves sold for coca cola weight the same as unprocessed (what is very doubtful), then how much would Europe get allocated? Probably less than half. But let's say it's half.

50 tons of this special extract isnt much. That's just two shipping containers.

Also with their scale every bottle probably onlu getd some trace amount, so I wonder if cola would taste any different if it didnt include this.

The problem is not the source, rather the company origin.

Surely they ship [components of] the syrup because otherwise they have to ship the raw coca leaves? Is the global supply of coca extract processed by the Stepan company in USA?

Profits move the other way through IP payments at least.

Coca-Cola is mostly produced locally. Atleast the mixing of Sirup and bottling is.

I personally don't know if they ship their sirup around the world.

But, AIUI, usually the profits get exported via IP payments to the parent companies host nation.

And tariffs on intellectual property licenses are not on the table right now, as far as I’m aware. Right?

Company origin is what matters, people boycoyting US products don't care where the companies source them from.

See the US companies trying the "built in Canada" marketing.

MAGA hats made in China are probably the definitive example

Even before everything happened I prefer to get Fritz Cola in German supermarkets because I can get Coca Cola literally anywhere else in the world. If only they would sell 0.5L glass bottles with screwtops more / start selling 0.33l Aluminium cans, I would switch over entirely.

Fritz Cola is cool, but it is unreasonably expensive. Their biggest bottle size is 0.5L and regularly costs like 1,60€.

Recently got back to drinking Afri cola. Tastes great (particularly their zero product) and is line 1,50€/L which is relatively reasonable.

I like them too! Hate Bluma though.

The German soda market is very very regionalized, along the same lines as the beer market (20 to 50km around the brewery, further away you won't get it anymore. Very big brands are exceptions of course). Practically every brewery (there are over a thousand) has its own line of sodas, usually white (lemon or lime) lemonade, yellow (orange) lemonade (both carbonated around here), spezi (cola plus orange), cola (some coca cola copy) and apfelschorle (apple juice plus carbonated water).

Additionally there are a few that cater to certain groups with special products like mate soda (Loscher invented it with Club Mate I guess, but nowadays there are 10 big brands and a few small ones) and special kinds of cola like AfriCola or Mate Cola. Fritz-Kola is one of those products, you can get it in every city in well-stocked supermarkets, but it is a product that only caters to a certain kind of people and establishments (think "Berlin-like club-going techno-mad party-crowd" maybe). So many places will carry something else that caters to their group, and their region.

That is also why the Coca-Cola marketshare that the sister comment mentioned will go down, but it will not be replaced by another big producer, just maybe a handful of nationwide brands plus tons of regional ones.

When politicians pick fights with leaders of other nations, the people don't have to go along with them.

But in this case the fight got picked by "the US", as europeans it's about "self defence", so the will to join the boycott may be greater.

This time the US government picked a fight with the people though, those are the ones who need to bear the brunt of those pointless tarrifs.

Did Europe not have tariffs before Trump?

Social media makes it possible for leaders of nations to pick fights with random individuals on Twitter. Or entire subcultures, nations, or groups of people.

I've not seen large companies advertising "from Europe" despite this now being something a lot of people seem to be looking for (hard to tell with social media). Perhaps they fear losing USA sales?

It's going to take time.

Media services (films, video games, social media) is pretty tricky to move on.

I don’t think that it will be visible so quickly. These things will take more time.

Will my company switch away from azure today? Probably not. Will my company include more European alternatives in the next vendor selection. Definitely yes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com