According to a company release, Coca-Cola India has reported among the highest growths in the Asia Pacific group of the Coca-Cola Company. For the entire Asia Pacific group, second quarter volume rose by 8 per cent over the previous year, contributing significantly to the company's global volume increase of 7 per cent.

Coca-Cola India attributed the strong performance to its decentralised manufacturing and distribution network set in place early this year, combined with market and consumer focused localised marketing. ``This clearly reflects the success of our `think local, act local' approach on two counts. One, the decentralised system brings us closer to our markets and consumers, enabling us to adopt specific strategies to suit local requirements. Two, the volume of growth clearly demonstrates the runaway success for our new marketing campaign,'' president and CEO of Coca-Cola India Alexander von Behr said.

The company has-since January this year, continued to invest heavily in augmenting its infrastructure across the country, particularly its distribution and retail network. Investment in distribution also increased in the latter part of the second quarter through ploughing back the additional cash flow due to enhanced abatement in excise, the release added.``In the last two years, nearly 70 per cent of the $ 836 million investment by the company in India has been in the form of infrastructure development. This includes setting up of 10 greenfield manufacturing units besides the manufacturing and retail expansion," von Behr said.