South Korea: Hite catching up fast with beer industry’s front-runner Oriental Brewery

Competition is flaring up in South Korea’s beer market as the No. 2 player Hite is catching up fast with the front-runner Oriental Brewery, Korea IT Times reported on October 2.

Hite is accelerating marketing efforts in recent days to take advantage of Oriental Brewery’s recent “bad odor” scandal arising from the strong-smelling substance in the company’s flagship brand Cass beer.

According to a local discount store which compiled the sales of beers by brand during the period from September 1 to 29, Oriental Brewery had a share of 46.9 percent, followed by Hite Jinro with 38.3 percent, and Lotte Liquor with 14.8 percent.

Considering that the gap between Oriental Brewery and Hite averaged at 30.4 percentage points during the January-April period of this year, Hite narrowed the gap to 8.6 percentage points. For the first time in three years, the Oriental Brewery/Hite market share gap is narrowed to a single digit figure.

03 October, 2014