India: United Breweries to introduce offerings in all price categories

Beer maker United Breweries is planning to introduce offerings spanning all price points. It also plans to get into the craft beer segment, BusinessLine reported on May 23.

According to Samar Singh Sheikhawat, Chief Marketing Officer, the compaby will look at more launches in the super-premium category (within this fiscal).

Some of the premium brands that UB would like to introduce include the Dutch brand Amstel (from Heineken stable) — its first super premium strong beer — and compete with the likes of Carlsberg Elephant and other global ones. Its craft beer, in both mild and strong categories, is also expected to be launched within this year.

“Wherever there is the potential consumer for beer, we will have an offering from our portfolio to address that consumer. New products, marketing budgets and upping distribution is what we are looking at,” he told BusinessLine on the sidelines of a CII event.

It will look to grow its market share by expanding into more outlets with its current portfolio across Kingfisher and Heineken.

Some of the focus offerings will include Kingfisher Ultra, Kingfisher Ultra Max, Kingfisher and Heineken, apart from Kinghfisher Storm — which has already been well received.

United Breweries enjoy a 55 per cent market share (that means more than one beer out of every two sold is from Kingfisher or Heineken ) in India.

Apart from national and international brands, its portfolio spans regional brands such as ‘Kalyani Black Label’ and so on.

Imported beer is also witnessing growth, sources say.

According to a BMI Research report, total alcohol consumption in India is at 5.1 litres per capita in 2018, considerably lower than the Asian per capita average of 20.9 litres.

23 May, 2018