PepsiCo to continue investing in India: Indra Nooyi

Seventeen years after it came to India, Pepsico is yet to recover its investment. While it is making cash profits, operating profits are still some distance away says Indra Nooyi in her first visit to India after taking over as president and CEO of Pepsico, reports CNBC-TV18.

While hard-selling India to Japanese investors, prime minister Manmohan Singh had quoted a Japanese study that said India was more profitable to most Japanese manufacturers than other East Asian markets. But that does not seem to be the case with Pepsico India that has invested $700 million in India, half a billion of which is its own money.

Therefore, Indra Nooyi, president and CEO, PepsiCo, says, "Superior profits, it is not our experience yet. India will remain an investment market for some time."

As chief financial officer from 2001, and joint author of PepsiCo corporate strategy along with former CEO Steve Reinemund, Nooyi does not anticipate any major strategic change in the near future. And while acquisitions were a second option, she said she did not see any attractive acquisition targets in India.

So India would remain an investment market for some time to come. And while India was a key market, China was leading the region both in size of sales revenue and growth.