Swire Coca-Cola, the beverage-business segment of the Hong Kong-based international conglomerate Swire Pacific, is betting on the strategic business expansion of the Southeast Asian market, based on its deep roots in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong market.
From its humble beginning of just a single bottling plant when the beverage company was established in 1965, Swire Coca-Cola has grown into a global company managing 41 facilities and 62 brands, serving more than 942 million customers.
“Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing beverage markets in the world, and consumers in these markets are young and aspirational with rising incomes,” Swire Coca-Cola CEO Karen So told China Daily in an interview.
“The innovations we have built in Greater China, in digital execution, in AI-enabled ordering, in green manufacturing, are now being brought into Southeast Asia,” she added.
Swire Coca-Cola has cultivated deep roots in the Chinese mainland market. The company operates 23 plants across the Chinese mainland, manufacturing more than 100 products across 20 brands.
Last month, Swire Coca-Cola opened two major new plants in Kunshan in Jiangsu province, and Guangzhou in Guangdong province. The Kunshan plant is the bottling company’s largest single strategic investment in the Chinese mainland to date.
“With a combined total investment of 3.25 billion yuan ($481 million), the two plants house more than 20 modern production lines. Their combined annual capacity exceeds 3.1 million metric tons, which will increase the company’s total production capacity in the mainland by 10 percent,” So said.
“The Kunshan and Guangzhou manufacturing facilities represent the company’s strategic investment in the supply-chains in the country’s two most economically advanced regions (the Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay), underscoring the company’s confidence of business expansion for the mainland market,” the CEO added.
With Kunshan and Guangzhou now in operation, the company expects its Hainan plant will open by the end of 2027.
Swire Coca-Cola said in 2023 it will commit to investing 12 billion yuan in the Chinese mainland from 2023 to 2033, covering new plants, production line upgrades, and new-generation coolers.
Swire Coca-Cola is confident that its sustainability practices and production innovation can play a role in aligning with the national development goals.
The bottling company has created a closed-loop bottle-to-bottle recycling system in Hong Kong in which more than 50 percent of the plastic the company uses in its Hong Kong plant comes from recycled materials.
“We believe this model could serve as a meaningful reference for the Greater Bay Area and beyond, and we would explore how it could support the mainland’s own carbon neutrality goals,” So said.
In Vietnam, Swire Coca-Cola has partnered with mainland Shanghai Baosteel Packaging Co. The packaging company has built an aluminum-can facility that is connected with the beverage company’s nearby bottling plant through a dedicated corridor.
“This ‘wall-to-wall’ model can cut logistics costs and carbon emissions significantly, showcasing how we are leveraging our global network to help mainland enterprises going global,” the CEO said.
Swire Coca-Cola has the exclusive right to manufacture, market and distribute products of The Coca-Cola Company in 11 provinces and the Shanghai municipality on the Chinese mainland, and in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, most of Thailand, and an extensive area of the western United States.
Swire Coca-Cola made an attributable profit of HK$1.31 billion ($167 million) in 2025, whereas the attributable profit generated from the Chinese mainland market increased 1 percent annually to HK$846 million in the same period.
The Hong Kong-listed Swire Pacific edged up 0.72 percent to close at HK$83.55 per share on Monday. The conglomerate has a diversified business portfolio that includes property, aviation, beverages, trading & industrial, and healthcare.
