What does Facebook have in common with Coca-Cola? Both believe their core businesses support investments in Internet access. Neither Coca-Cola nor Facebook want to become retail Internet access providers. But both firms are investing significant money and effort into the access function.
Coca-Cola in 2015 iinvested an unknown amount in satellite Internet services provider OneWeb, which plans to build a constellation of low earth orbit satellites to provide internet access literally anywhere on the surface of the earth.
Coca-Cola believes the investment will help the firm expand its global footprint, manage its supply chain and potentially help raise incomes, which could also increase demand for Coca-Cola products, according to Bea Perez, Coca-Cola’s chief sustainability officer.
“We operate in 207 countries as a business,” said Perez. “A lot of those countries are beyond what most people would consider a point of access.”
“Fifty-four percent of the world is not connected,” Perez argued. “So, if you’re a big company, then you’re limiting your markets.”
Some might argue the investment is a small amount and a bit of a vanity project for Coca-Cola. The business case for “connecting the unconnected” is not as clear for Coca-Cola as it is for Facebook. Internet users drive the advertising reach upon which Facebook builds its business.
For Coca-Cola, there is an indirect relationship, at best, between people using the Internet and Coca-Cola revenues.
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