India. Cheers to fruit beers!
Microbreweries are pushing the envelope when it comes to developing unique flavoured brews — experimenting with fruits such as jackfruit and kiwi. (more…)
Beer Business Asia #2-2016
Analysis of beer market in China
China’s transition to a “new normal” reality backfired on the brewing industry unexpectedly. Stagnation and subsequent market decline resulted from dynamic social and economic changes. There has emerged a “two speed” market where the medium class significance is growing, yet the share of main beer consumers, “blue collar” is decreasing. Also the inflow of consumers is shrinking, as demographics stopped being a growth driver. Finally, beer is giving way to other alcohol drinks.
Carlsberg Group
Carlsberg Group ranks fifth by the sales volumes in China. The company is referred to as King of the West as it owns the “controlling stake” of the beer market on huge but sparsely-populated territories of the Western China. (more…)
Yanjing Beer
Company structure
Beijing Yanjing Brewery Co., Ltd. (further Yanjing Beer) was founded in 1980 and is the only big brewing company, which never had connections with transnational groups.
AB InBev
On the Chinese market the world giant is represented by subdivision Anheuser-Busch InBev China Co., Ltd. which controls the activity of 16 subsidiaries and joint ventures. They are responsible for beer production and distribution throughout the country managing nearly 50 breweries with the net capacity of 91 mln hl*. Two national and one international brand by AB InBev are well known in China today: Budweiser, Harbin, and Sedrin together account for nearly 73% of the companies’ sales. (more…)
Tsingtao Brewery
Company’s background and structure
Tsingtao Brewery remains the most famous and top-rated brewing company in China, though it lost the leading positions 10 years ago. Besides, Tsingtao Brewery is a major beer exporter and a sole big beer manufacturer known outside China due to its Tsingtao brand.
Part 2. New reality for brewing companies
Less but more expensive
The fall in sales volumes considerably affected brewers’ revenues. The two digit growth rates that were observed till 2013, gave way to a more modest figures and in 2015, the sales revenues grew by …% compared to 2014 to … bln yuan. In dollars the decline amounted to …% to $… bln due to yuan devaluation.
Chinese craft beer
Wealthy representatives of “New China” ever more frequently prefer to buy a bottle or two of special quality beer and background ignoring the mainstream product. In truth, many Chinese think that only import beer can be qualitative and can outline their status. But as many other countries’ experience shows the fast popularity growth of import beer is a precondition for the craft segment and small brewing development. (more…)
Imported beer
Till 2012, the import segment was microscopic, amounting to 0.1%. Its heyday began as the national beer producers started withering. The popularity of import brands was growing due to the powerful trend of the market premiumization. (more…)