Monster Beverage (MNST +0.89%) is looking for ways to expand beyond the energy drink category, which it currently dominates. In this Motley Fool Live segment from "3-Minute Stock Updates," recorded on July 18, Fool.com contributors Toby Bordelon and Connor Allen consider the possibilities for Monster Beverage.
Toby Bordelon: They do dominate the category. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if you look at market share they're far and away, they're number one in that space. To the point where Coca-Cola tried to get into the energy beverage business, then they couldn't compete, so they exited basically in North America and they formed a partnership with Monster Beverage, and said, you sell [inaudible 00:15:52] industry, we'll also be your distributor. You deal with this because we can't do this against you, which was fascinating. I think the alcohol is what they think the solution is. That's the CANarchy's situation given that if you're already number one, it's hard to grow that much bigger in your space.
I think they're looking at alcohol as a solution. Now that's risky. It's a different market, it's more competitive, it's more regulated. We're going to see if they can manage that. I think that's why they bought a brewery where they're starting from scratch to get a head start on that regulation and all those rules. We'll see if they can pull that off. The other option you would come up with is hey, maybe we can go into other non-alcoholic beverages. But you do that, then what are you doing? Then you're competing with Coke, you're competing with Pepsi. That brings another host of problems. I'm not sure they want to do that, I think they're satisfied with that partnership they have with Coca-Cola right now.
If I had to guess, I see alcohol is probably where they're going to be pushing more out to. We'll have to see, we'll follow them along in a couple quarters to see if they announce anything else or how that CANarchy acquisition is actually doing under their watch. But yeah, very successful company. You clearly identify the question, can they continue to be successful in maybe different categories going forward?
Connor Allen: Yeah, that'll be exciting. Definitely. I think it's definitely a possibility for them to continue to chug along as a really successful company and a successful stock to own as well.
