My employer provides software solutions for companies that sell products via vending machines. My coworkers who provide customer telephone support and who travel to provide on-site training and installation services know much more than I do about vending-machine sales trends nationwide.

They tell me that most of our customers -- that is, a large number of privately-owned vending operations scattered across most of the US -- sell much more Pepsi than Coke. The New Orleans area is an exception to this general rule, and of course there are numerous other exceptions here and there.

PDQ may be correct in asserting that Coke is more popular in rural (i.e., thinly populated) areas while Pepsi does better in cities.

Vending-machine sales are worth considering because they have little or no dependance upon the corporate alliances linking Pepsi to KFC/TacoBell/etc.

Pepsi's success is nothing new -- it's the reason Coca-Cola brought out that stupid "New Coke" several years ago, which was nothing more than imitation Pepsi. If they hadn't switched back to the old favorite original formula, they'd have lost the customers who always *preferred* Coke -- millions of people, even if not a majority - and the company would be long gone by now.