India: Cobra Beer launches new diet beer in India

Cobra Beer India, the Indian subsidiary of the $400-million UK-based Cobra Beer, promoted by Karan Billimoria, will be launching “diet beer” in the country, according to Economic Times, June 17.

It is learnt that company’s diet beer will hit the Indian market in September, and it has targeted sales of around 50,000 cases in the first year. It will launch diet beer first in the metros such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and later expand it to the other centres.

The beer’s brand name is still not finalised, but there would be massive marketing and advertising campaign before the launch, people close to the situation said. The move marks an important stage in the company’s India development strategy.

“There are plans to launch diet beer and our internal team is working on it. As of now, there is nothing much to share as everything is at a nascent stage,” Cobra Indian Beer managing director Poonam Chandel told ET.

Cobra Beer, which has a capacity of 6-lakh cases per month and a marketshare of 3% in India, is hopeful of cornering 10% of the domestic beer market by 2012.

17 June, 2008