NIGERIA – Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited has unveiled Limca Cola, a new variant introduced to expand the footprint of the Limca Brand in the country.

The company, in a statement issued by promoters of the brand, described Limca Cola as a good quality sparkling soft drink with a unique cola taste to deliver refreshment to consumers on-the-go.

Gbolahan Sanni, Franchise Marketing Manager at Coca-Cola Nigeria said: “We are excited about the introduction of Limca Cola to the Nigerian market.

Limca Cola is a reaffirmation of our commitment to innovatively refreshing our consumers on-the-go with a good quality product, unique cola taste at an affordable price.”

According to Sanni, the new variant is designed to provide an invigorating carbonated taste of Cola.

Limca Cola comes in 60cl PET bottles packaging retailing at N100 (US$0.28), and will be available in wholesale and retail outlets across the country.

The Limca Cola adds to the Limca Brand product portfolio which is also available in Lemon-Lime, Bitter Lemon and Soda Water variants in Nigeria.

In 2017, Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited unveiled plans of investing US$600 million by 2020 to boost sales, as part of the parent company’s global strategy to offer more consumer likeable products that goes beyond its carbonated soft drinks.

Since then, the company has been able to increase its footprint in the country marked by its recent move to acquire full ownership of Chi Limited, a leading Juice manufacture in the country.

This comes at a time when Coca-Cola HBC, the parent company of Coca-Cola Nigeria, reported a 2.1% growth in its revenues to US$7.6 billion in its 2018 full year report.

The giant multinational beverage manufacturer said that sales growth was driven by 4.2% volume growth across all segments, buoyed by sparkling beverages.

However, the firm noted that its business in Nigeria and Italy saw volume declines, which the company attributed to a competitive environment in Nigeria.

The company noted that continued intense competition in Nigeria coupled with price hikes experienced in October last year pushed down volumes in fourth quarter.

Subsequently, the dwindling volume performance translated to a small growth in the first nine months and a decline of 1.9% for the full year.

The company said it expects the refinancing cost of a US$907 million bond which will mature in June 2020 to double in 2019 when compared to 2018.