September 15/Atlanta/Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- By the year 2020, more than 2 billion people around the world are expected to join the middle class or move from rural and farming areas into big cities. Coca-Cola hopes they will be thirsty.
In a bid to broaden its international appeal, the Atlanta-based beverage giant has announced investments of more than $30 billion in markets around the world over the next five years. The investment boost, which will be done in conjuction with Coca-Cola’s bottling partners, is part of the company’s “2020 Vision,” a strategy to double Coca-Cola’s revenue -- it was about $100 billion in 2010 -- in the next eight years.