Who Owns Sprite? Coca-Cola, Its Shareholders and the Bottlers Behind Every Can
Sprite is owned by The Coca-Cola Company, which bought the rights to the name in 1960 and launched the drink in the United States in 1961. Coca-Cola is a public company (NYSE: KO), so the owners at the top of the chain are its shareholders, led by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway with roughly 9% of the stock.
That’s the short answer. The longer one matters because Coca-Cola owns the brand and the recipe, but in most countries it doesn’t make the Sprite you drink. Independent and part-owned bottlers do, and in India one of them is now 40% owned by an Indian conglomerate.
Key takeaways
Is Sprite owned by Pepsi or Coke?
Coke. Sprite has been a Coca-Cola brand since day one in the US and has never belonged to PepsiCo.
The confusion is understandable. Pepsi has spent decades trying to build its own lemon-lime soda to fight Sprite. Its latest attempt is Starry, launched in January 2023 to replace Sierra Mist, which had been on shelves since 1999 without denting Sprite’s lead.
Who owns Sprite and 7UP?
Two different companies, and for 7UP the answer depends on where you are. Sprite belongs to Coca-Cola everywhere. 7UP is owned by Keurig Dr Pepper in the United States, while PepsiCo owns and sells it in most other markets, which is why 7UP sits next to Pepsi in a shop in Mumbai or Manchester.
| Lemon-lime soda | Brand owner (US) | Brand owner (outside US) |
|---|---|---|
| Sprite | The Coca-Cola Company | The Coca-Cola Company |
| 7UP | Keurig Dr Pepper | PepsiCo (most markets) |
| Starry | PepsiCo | PepsiCo |
| Sierra Mist | PepsiCo (replaced by Starry in 2023) | n/a |
Split ownership like 7UP’s is more common in soft drinks than most people expect. RC Cola has two different owners depending on the country, and Sunkist separates the fruit trademark from the soda brand.
How Coca-Cola ended up with Sprite
The drink started in West Germany in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone, a clear lemon Fanta. The name came from elsewhere: a Houston bottler, T.C. “Bud” Evans, had used “Sprite” for a line of drinks in the mid-1950s.
Coca-Cola picked up the rights to the name in 1960 and launched Sprite in the US the following year, aimed squarely at 7UP. The sugar-free version arrived in 1974 and has been called Sprite Zero Sugar since 2019. In August 2022 Coca-Cola dropped the green plastic bottle for clear PET, because the green version couldn’t be recycled into new bottles.
Owning the trademark also means Coca-Cola decides every spin-off. Recent ones include Sprite Lymonade Legacy in 2023, the minty Sprite Chill line from 2024 and a canned Absolut Vodka and Sprite cocktail that launched in the UK in February 2024. That last one is a licensing tie-up with the vodka brand, not a change in who owns Sprite. Canned vodka drinks often sit under a parent you wouldn’t guess; High Noon, for example, belongs to wine giant E. & J. Gallo.
Who actually makes Sprite?
This is where “owns” splits into layers. Coca-Cola owns the trademark and the formula, makes the concentrate and runs the marketing. Bottling partners buy that concentrate, add water, sweetener and carbonation, then package and distribute the finished drink in their territories.
Many of those bottlers are separately listed companies with their own shareholders, such as Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in Europe, Coca-Cola FEMSA in Latin America and Coca-Cola Consolidated in the US. Coca-Cola holds minority stakes in some of the largest ones. It’s a franchise-style setup where the brand owner keeps the high-margin piece and partners carry the trucks and factories.
Coca-Cola’s 2025 annual report, filed in February 2026, shows how the money moves. A bottler must buy all the concentrate it needs for Coca-Cola’s brands from Coca-Cola or a supplier it approves. In most markets the concentrate price moves with the bottler’s own pricing, sales channels and pack mix, so Coca-Cola shares in every price rise.
Where Coca-Cola runs bottling itself, it books more revenue but earns a lower gross margin than it does selling concentrate. And the system leans on a few big partners: its five largest independent bottlers handled 44% of worldwide unit case volume in 2025.
Sprite’s four ownership layers: who owns the company, the brand, the bottling and one local example.
Who owns Sprite in India?
The brand is still 100% Coca-Cola’s in India. What changed is the bottling side. Coca-Cola announced in December 2024 that Jubilant Bhartia Group would buy 40% of Hindustan Coca-Cola Holdings, the parent of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), its largest bottler in the country. Jubilant said the deal closed on July 23, 2025.
So a bottle of Sprite filled at an HCCB plant carries a brand Coca-Cola fully owns, made by a company in which Jubilant now has a 40% say. Other parts of India are served by separate franchise bottlers.
India is also one of Sprite’s biggest wins. Coca-Cola’s then-CEO James Quincey said on the October 2022 earnings call that Sprite had become a billion-dollar brand in the Indian market. In February 2025 a Coca-Cola India executive told PTI the company expects Sprite and Thums Up to reach $2 billion each, without giving a date.
Who owns Coca-Cola, and who runs it?
No single person or family controls Coca-Cola. One famous long-term investor and two giant fund managers hold the largest blocks, based on the latest SEC filings and the 4.30 billion shares Coca-Cola reported outstanding in July 2026:
- Berkshire Hathaway: 400 million shares, roughly 9.3%. Buffett’s company has held the same 400 million shares for decades, and its 13F for June 30, 2026 still lists them.
- BlackRock: about 322.7 million shares, roughly 7.5%, according to its 13F filing for June 30, 2026.
- Vanguard: 276.8 million shares, or 6.43%, reported by Vanguard Capital Management in a Schedule 13G as of March 31, 2026.
The Vanguard figure comes with a catch. After an internal realignment in January 2026, The Vanguard Group itself now reports a 0% stake, and separate units file on their own. Any Vanguard unit holding less than 5% doesn’t have to file at all, so 6.43% is a floor for Vanguard as a whole, which helps explain why older tallies put it above 8%.
Add those up and the top three hold about 23%. The rest is spread across other funds and millions of individual investors, each share carrying one vote.
Here’s what that ownership is worth in cash. At Coca-Cola’s 2026 dividend of $2.12 a share, Berkshire’s 400 million shares bring in about $848 million a year. Sprite is one of the brands paying for it, though Coca-Cola doesn’t break out Sprite’s revenue in its filings.
Management is a separate layer again. Henrique Braun took over as CEO on March 31, 2026, with Quincey moving to executive chairman, according to Coca-Cola’s December 2025 succession announcement. The board answers to shareholders; nobody owns Sprite personally.
So if you’re asking who to thank or blame for your Sprite, it’s Coca-Cola in Atlanta for the recipe and the ads, a local bottler for the can in your hand, and, a few steps back, every pension fund and investor holding KO.
FAQ
Does Warren Buffett own Sprite?
Not directly. Berkshire Hathaway, the company Buffett built, owns about 9.3% of The Coca-Cola Company, which owns Sprite. That makes Berkshire the largest shareholder, but it doesn’t control Coca-Cola’s board or decide anything about Sprite on its own. It simply collects its share of the dividends.
Is Sprite the same as Fanta?
No, though they’re related. Sprite began in West Germany in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone, a clear lemon Fanta. Coca-Cola then built Sprite into its own brand from 1961. Both are still owned by Coca-Cola, but they’re marketed and sold as separate drinks.
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