10 Most Selling Soft Drink Brands in India 2021
Looking for soft drinks to help wash down your snack? Check out our list of the Most Selling Soft Drink Brands in India!
Soft drinks are a huge part of our modern Indian culture. There is no doubt that once summer sets in, soft drinks’ sales go steeply up. No occasion or event, be it the IPL or a birthday party is complete without a soft drink. Read on for the reviews of the most selling soft drink brands in India.
Related: Most Selling Tomato Ketchup Brands in India
Our team has done a thorough research and come to the conclusion that there is one drink that the Indian clientele loves and favours better than the rest.
Maaza has been recorded as the most selling soft drink brand in India because of India’s mango produce. Maaza is a brand which is owned by Coca Cola and has emerged as one of the most favorite among the Indian consumers. Known for its juicy mango pulp, Maaza is considered as a tasty approach to quench your thirst. It comes cheap and affordable with the sachets being sold at Rs. 10.
Related: 8 Best Fruit Juice Brands in India
Most Selling Soft Drink Brands in India
Pepsi
Be it some spicy biryani or a loaded cheesy pizza, it is not complete without a can of Pepsi. It’s one of the Most Selling Soft Drink Brands in India.
This black fizzy drink quenches thirst as well as sugar cravings as it washes down food. Despite being in the public eye for a lot of wrong reasons like pesticide regulations, Pepsi has never fallen off the scale.
The mother brand of Pepsi, Pepsico is an American multinational corporation which made its entry into India to give Coca Cola stiff competition. It still does. For the diet conscious Pepsi has the diet version as well as the Zero sugar one for those who are diabetic.
Though Pepsi has other flavours like Vanilla and Wild Cherry, they aren’t very popular in India.
The original is the one that still appeals to our taste buds. Pepsi reinvented itself with a slimmer and sleeker can that sets it apart from all the other brands out there.
Related: 11 Best Coffee Brands in India
Coca Cola
Coca Cola was one of the first soft drink companies to establish itself in India on a real large scale.
The factories of Coca Cola were so popular back then for the number of people they employed and the sweet fizzy drink it manufactured. Shortened to “Coke”, Coca Cola has become synonymous for any Cola drink.
The familiar red can is the one big competitor to Pepsi and while fans of each argue that one tastes better than the other, there has been no real winner out of the two.
Coca Cola comes in several variants that include a cherry flavour and a vanilla flavour. While the Vanilla did have some people liking it, the cherry didn’t have much takers. One popular variant of Coca Cola is the “Diet Coke” for the weight conscious.
Like Pepsi, Coca Cola also has the “Coke Zero Sugar” for those who want to avoid sugar in their drinks.
Sprite
Cola is nice but when you want something to refresh you and bring back some energy real quick, there’s nothing like a lemon drink. There are plenty of lemon based soft drinks in India but there are very few that have managed to sustain and carve a niche for themselves.
Sprite, without doubt, is one. Sprite has a very crisp taste which is a blend of lemon and lime.
The carbonation in Sprite is much lesser than the fizz in the carbonation drinks, making this a favourite with those who like their drinks a little more pleasant.
Sprite also does not contain any caffeine, so it’s a safe drink you can consume after dinner.
A lot of people prefer Sprite when they have a stomach upset, as they say that the sugar and the mild fizz combination helps relieve bloating and cramps.
Thums Up
When Coca Cola and Pepsi were competing in India, A third brand came up, bolder and stronger than the first two. Thums Up, with its slogan “Taste The Thunder” is definitely one of a kind.
While Pepsi and Coca Cola worked on making the drinks taste better and to suit the Indian palette, this Indian born company knew exactly what would work – Stronger and better fizz.
The strength of the carbonation in Thums Up is something that definitely cannot be ignored, keeping up with the slogan.
Thought Thums Up is also a Cola drink, the blend of ingredients seems to be different with a spicier taste. You might expect the fizz to ruin the taste, instead it enhances it and stays with you for a long time after you are done with the drink.
Thums Up is now owned by Coca Cola but it still has its own loyal following.
Mirinda
Mirinda is another best selling soft drink in India, by the parent company Pepsico. Mirinda has two variants, a lemon and an orange one, but it is better known for the orange flavour.
There were other flavours introduced as well, but they failed to leave a mark in the Indian market.
Like many soft drinks in India, Mirinda has its own set of fans who will choose no soft drink other than Mirinda.
Go to any birthday celebration and Mirinda will be one of the drinks on the table. The flavour of orange Mirinda is quite close to that of a natural orange drink. The fizz is mild and the sweetness is well balanced.
While the black colas are sweeter, the orange flavour of Mirinda is tangy, which is the real appeal.
The one downside is that the colouring used is quite bright and can leave an orange tinge on your lips and tongue.
Fanta
Fanta is the direct competitor for Mirinda, and another best selling soft drink in India. Very similar to Mirinda, yet very different, Fanta is a perfect accompaniment for most fast food dishes. Owned by Coca Cola, this orange soda brings a lot of childhood memories for many people today.
As for the taste, Fanta seems to have a much stronger orange flavour as well as feels a lot more bubbly than Mirinda. Nothing about Fanta is mild or basic.
The strong carbonation stays a long time, right until you finish the can of the drink. It also quite tangy and the flavour lingers for a long time.
While the original orange Fanta does contain a lot of sugar, the company also makes a zero sugar version for the diet conscious to help maintain your waistline while enjoying the same taste.
7up
7Up is as popular or probably more popular than Sprite as it has been around for a real long time. Lime and lemon drinks never go out of the market as these are classic mixer for mocktails and cocktails.
7Up is one such favourite as it has a lemon and sugar taste that blends well with most other drinks.
Like Sprite, 7Up is also free of caffeine and therefore a good post-dinner or evening drink.
However, 7Up has a much stronger fizz content that Sprite. This makes it a good drink by itself as well.
7Up did come up with flavours other than the regular citrus ones but they never managed to gain popularity.
What we loved and still love, is the good old lemon flavoured original drink.
Mountain Dew
Among the Lemon based soft drinks in India, Mountain Dew holds a high place. This lemon drink sets itself apart from 7Up and Sprite with its flavour. It is much sweeter and contains more sugar than the other two market leaders.
Mountain Dew also feels a lot more refreshing and energises immediately when compared to the subtle feeling that the other two drinks bring.
This could be because of the caffeine content that is missing in the other lemon soft drinks.
The other reason is that the carbonation content in Mountain Dew is a lot more than what’s contained in Sprite, giving the drinker an instant feeling of feeling refreshed and having his thirst quenched.
There is also a diet version of Mountain Dew, which is sugar free, and is sweetened with aspartame for diabetes or those who are trying to keep sugar out of their diets, but still want to satisfy their cravings.
Maaza
You can stay away from all the fizzy drinks if you dislike carbonation and choose a nice mango drink like Maaza. Maaza is one of the most selling soft drinks in India and rightly so.
Our tropical country goes nuts over mangoes for four months of the year and the rest of the year we longingly wait for the mango season again.
Maaza satisfies this desire for enjoying the taste of real mangoes in a bottle, any time of the year.
This is a drink that reminds every Indian about the succulent fruit and brings back nostalgic memories.
Made of a mix of real mango pulp along with artificial ingredients, this is a drink that is not too sweet, not too sour, just the right flavour of mango that we yearn to taste.
I have seen adults refusing to give their children the fizzy cola drinks, but not many refuse Maaza.
Shunya Cola
The international soft drink brands definitely rule the market, but there are people who prefer to go natural and keep away from the sugar, artificial sweeteners like aspartame and other ingredients that can have ill effects on the body. It’s one of the Most Selling Soft Drink Brands in India.
Shunya Cola is fizzy and is sweetened by pure stevia leaves.
This leaves no bitter aftertaste like most artificially flavoured soft drinks or their diet counterparts.
Apart from this, Shunya Cola also contains added ashwagandha herb, vitamin C and antioxidants so you are building your immunity and being protected from environmental damage to your body.
Talk about having a healthy cola!
This soft drink is also made with no preservatives and is free of caffeine.
Soft drinks are one great relief to our stressful routines we go through every day and knowing what goes on with each of them is extremely vital. We hope we have gotten right into that with the above list.
Also Read:
Most Popular Chocolate Brands in India
Best Organic Honey Brands in India
Hipbrands puts together some of the best brands in India to make it easier for our readers to purchase wisely.
I’m Preethi Menon, an avid learner of tech and gadgets. I have been reviewing top brands for 5 years and aim to do the same more elaborately so as to give a customer everything there is to know about a particular brand. There are brands in India that are overlooked due to the dominating mainstream direction we are headed in. At Hipbrands, we believe in the balance of quality and cost and focus on brands that provide exactly that!
To give you an insight into our expertise, here are some of the major categories that we cover on our site – Technology, Fashion, Food, Accessories, and Information.
So brace yourselves into knowing more and experiencing more from the best brands in the country!