Nooyi had recently said that the company might make two or more acquisitions outside North America this year to add snacks or drinks it did not already make.
Sanjeev Chadha, CEO, Pepsi Co Holdings India, told Business Standard that the acquisition target in India had been identified. However, he refused to elaborate on how soon he would be able to announce the deal and said the company would focus on juices and not bottled water acquisitions.
"Juices and juice-based drinks are going to be the biggest focus area as the beverages industry is set to register double-digit growth," he added.
Chadha mentioned that the emergence of organised retail had created the right environment for impulse purchases and hence the need to have a wider product portfolio in India.
"We are moving from Pepsi to PepsiCo," he said elaborating that PepsiCo is strengthening its non-carbonated portfolio to move away from the cola-centric image. Over the next few years, the target is to ensure that non-carbonated beverages make up a significant chunk of overall revenues.
As a part of this exercise, the company has merged the distribution system of its juice brand, Tropicana, by realigning the juice brand's distribution with its mainline Pepsi distribution channel.
The marketing function of the Tropicana brand would also be brought under the larger PepsiCo umbrella, Chadha added. The realignment is targeted towards allowing Tropicana to be marketed through a much wider distribution channel and increase the size of the business.
Conventionally, colas have dominated the company's Indian landscape. Though the contribution of colas is decreasing, it still constitutes 40 per cent of the pie, which is higher than the company's global norms. Pepsi estimates the non-carbonated products to comprise 50 per cent of its portfolio, in the near future.
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