Powerade

Powerade is a sports drink manufactured and marketed by The Coca-Cola Company. Its primary competitor is PepsiCo's Gatorade brands. As of December 2010, Powerade has grown to take 21.7 percent of the United States market in the sports drink category, compared to Gatorade's 77.2 percent. In 2009, Powerade was relaunched as Powerade ION4, a formulation that contains four key electrolytes in the same ratio that is typically lost in sweat. PepsiCo sued The Coca-Cola Company, after ads were released claiming that Gatorade was an incomplete sports drink, since it only contained two of the four key electrolytes. The presiding judge ruled in favor of Coca-Cola, for a number of reasons: the ads were no longer running, Gatorade had made similar claims about their Endurance line, and Pepsi failed to show any harm or damage caused by the ads, which were only designed to run for sixty days.

History

In 1988, Powerade became the official sports drink of the Olympics, alongside Aquarius, another sports drink made by Coca-Cola. It is a rival of another sports drink, Gatorade. In July 2001, The Coca-Cola Company launched a new formula for Powerade including vitamins B₃, B₆ and B₁₂, which play a role in energy metabolism.