Red Bull.com

In 1982, Dietrich Mateschitz became aware of products called "tonic drinks", which enjoyed widespread popularity throughout Far East. His idea to market these functional drinks outside Asia evolved whilst he sat at a bar at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong.

In 1984, Mateschitz founded Red Bull. He fine-tuned the product, developed a unique marketing concept and started selling Red Bull Energy Drink on the Austrian market in 1987. This was not only the launch of a completely new product, in fact it was the birth of a totally new product category.

In 2008, Red Bull launched its own Cola: Red Bull Simply Cola – Strong & Natural. Very much in line with the needs of today's consumers, Red Bull Cola - unlike traditional colas - only contains ingredients of 100% natural sources.

In 2009, Red Bull extended its product portfolio with Red Bull Energy Shots: Starting in the USA, now gradually rolling out globally.

Around 4 billion cans of Red Bull are consumed every year. The responsibility for the success of the world's No. 1 energy drink is shared by the company's 6,900 employees around the world. The Red Bull headquarters are based in Fuschl am See, not far from Salzburg, Austria.

Red Bull has been giving wiiings from the beginning – and has started to spread its own wings around the world quickly.

While the consumption was doubling year on year in Austria, Red Bull arrived in its first foreign markets, Singapore (1989) and Hungary (1992). The authorization for Germany was granted in 1994, the UK followed in 1995 and in 1997, the US business started in California.

Today Red Bull has annual sales of approx. 4 billion cans in 160 countries.

 

In 2009 some 3.906 billion cans of Red Bull Energy Drink were consumed world-wide, on a par with the previous year's figures and on target, despite the greater difficulties presented by the global economic climate.

The main reasons for the positive results are excellent sales in the Red Bull markets in the Far East (+43%), France (+32%), Brazil (+30%) and Germany (+18%) as well as consistent cost management. So despite an almost identical company turnover (3.268 billion Euro compared with 3.323 billion Euro in 2008), there was a significant increase in productivity and profit in the business year 2009.

As well as entering new markets in Norway and Denmark, the success of Red Bull Racing in Formula 1, Red Bull Salzburg's victories in the Europa League, the successful global rollout of the "Red Bulletin" and the launch of Servus TV were the main highlights of 2009.
The focus of future expansion will be on markets in Africa, Russia, India and Japan.

As of the end of 2009, Red Bull employed 6,900 people in 160 countries (end 2008: 5,683 in 148 countries). Despite the ongoing difficulties presented by the global economic downturn, plans for growth and investment in the business year 2010 remain - typically for Red Bull - very ambitious, but continue to rest on a solid and conservative financial footing.