Coca-Cola was founded 125 years ago and dominated the soft drink industry for a considerable period of time. It currently leads the industry with a market share of around 40% and 1.9 billion servings are consumed worldwide every day (Business Insider). The company is primarily known for its soft drinks, but it owns approximately 500 brands of soft drinks, juices, bottled waters, sports drinks and other types of beverages. Coca-Cola has a total of 17 brands that generate individual revenues of over $1 billion, including: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Powerade, Dasani, Fanta and Minute Maid (Market Realist). Coca-Cola is served in over 200 countries around the world and can be enjoyed by all types of people; however, they target Coca-Cola could be categorized as a consumer packaged goods company. Technically this could be thrown into that bucket, but in reality, Coca-Cola isn't competing with companies like General Mills, Procter & Gamble, or Reckitt Benckiser. Coca-Cola sells perishable beverages, not reusable or disposable products. Coca-Cola is almost a medicine. In fact, the company's original marketing strategies revolved around the drink's ability to cure headaches. Its main competitors are PepsiCo, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and, less obvious, Starbucks and Nestlé. As Coca-Cola partners with Dunkin Donuts in a new joint venture offering bottled coffee products, they are entering a niche product market where Nestlé and Starbucks are their main competitors (WSJ). So, if one were to classify Coca-Cola as anything other than soft drinks, then one could classify it as a bottling company. We chose to stick to the beverage industry because it requires more expertise to understand the chemistry and manufacturing involved with the benefits of an unfamiliar bottling industry than it does to understand how brand equity drives competitiveness.