US Bottled Water Volume Grows 3.5% in 2010

Published: May 31, 2011

ALEXANDIA, VA | The International Bottled Water Assn. (IBWA), in conjunction with Beverage Marketing Corp. (BMC) releases 2010 bottled water statistics, compiled by BMC, a research, consulting, and financial services firm dedicated to the global beverage industry. The new BMC data, released in the May 2011 issue of IBWA’s Bottled Water Reporter magazine, shows the overall consumption of bottled water has increased, by 3.5%, after slight losses in 2008 and 2009 due to poor economic conditions.  It also shows the bottled water category’s overall share of the liquid refreshment beverages marketplace grew slightly to 30%, up from approximately 29.2% in 2009.

This growth has encouraging implications for the label converting industry as it continues its rebound from its performance in 2008—2009 and as it pertains to glue-applied, pressure-sensitive, and shrink label converting technologies. According to sources with AWA Alexander Watson Assoc.: “Overall market demand for pressure-sensitive labels grew in 2010 with an overall growth rate of 5.5% over 2009. This is a significant improvement over the approximate -8% growth rate experienced in 2009/2008.  AWA forecast continued growth for the period 2010 to 2015 but at an overall rate of approximately 2.6% CAGR% yielding an additional volume of around 673 million square meters in 2015.”

In 2010, total bottled water consumption increased to 8.75 billion gal, up from 8.45 billion gal in 2009. Per-capita consumption is up 2.6% in 2010, with every person in America now drinking an average of 28.3 gal of bottled water last year.

Overall in 2010, the entire US refreshment beverage category grew by 1.2%, after two years of a recession-based downturn. Currently, carbonated soft drinks command a 23% market share, down slightly from 2009, while bottled water’s market share grew to 15% as consumer interest in healthy, calorie-free beverages increased while recessionary impacts on them decreased.

“While economic times are still tough for many, the consumption of healthy bottled water continues to be a part of their lifestyle,” said Joe Doss, President and CEO of IBWA. “Even during the past two slow economic years, bottled water consumption decreased less than most other major beverage categories.  The steady market share increase we now are experiencing is because consumers are choosing safe, high-quality bottled water over other packaged beverages,” Doss added.