Swire is an anchor bottler in the Coca-Cola System.

Notable anchor bottlers include:

Covering whole regions, countries and in some cases spanning several continents, the anchor bottlers use their marketing and borrowing power to shoulder competitors off the shelves.

We really attribute that to the anchor bottlers.

Coca-Cola's strategy of forming "anchor bottlers" - there are currently 10 worldwide - enables the company to focus marketing and promotion efforts that drive sales growth.

Another troubled anchor bottler is Coca-Cola Amatil, in Sydney, Australia.

"They should get some real incremental benefit from having put together these anchor bottlers."

Coca-Cola Enterprises, of which Coke now owns 45 percent, became the first of Coke's nine anchor bottlers.

The anchor bottlers' profit margins are greater than the independents', thanks to economies of scale in production and centralized marketing in contiguous sales territories.

The move raises the number of "anchor bottlers," publicly traded companies in which Coca-Cola retains a large stake, to 10 from 9.