Sri Lanka: Sri Lankans shifting towards drinking beer packed in aluminum cans

A shift in the consumption pattern of Sri Lankans towards strong beers packed in aluminum cans has been registered according to Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC’s reports of June 20th.

Chairman of the company, Vijay Shah in his review made to the firm’s latest annual report says, this factor along with several others impacted its domestic sales volumes.

According to him, the major decline has been in the Liquor segment which plays a vital part in the Piramal’s local sales.

“Part of our low end liquor market was lost to the cheap second-hand low quality liquor bottles which were imported into the Country”, Vijay revealed.

However, despite the drop experienced in the domestic market, the firm’s profit after tax during the financial year 2012 /13 has seen a year-on-year growth of 6-pct to stand at Rs. 725 million.
The company has earned Rs. 1.37 billion as export income during the reference year, an increase of 12-pct.
Vijay believes diversification of the firm’s export mix has helped the growth and also has reduced its dependence on the fiercely competitive Indian market.

“We have diversified our mix of export markets to now include Australia and New Zealand where we have launched several new products in different shapes and colours”, says the Chairman.

21 June, 2013