Japan: Asahi Breweries’ sales decline in January - March 2010, only new genre beer enjoys growing demand

Japan’s Asahi Breweries said on April, 12 its total beer sales dropped by 1.9% to 172,530 kl in March 2010.

As compared to the same month in 2009, sales of ordinary beer fell by 0.5% to 109,654 kl last month. Sales of low-malt happoshu beer plummeted 44.8% to 20,053 kl, whereas malt-based new genre beer saw a 45.8% increase in demand to 42,824 kl.

As for sales by brand, Asahi’s Style Free showed a 8.3% decline to 910 cases, sales of Super Dry dropped by 1.2% whereas sales of Clear Asahi increased by 12.4% to 1,630 cases.

The company’s total beer sales in the first three months of this year dropped by 6.5% to 378,299 kl, the biggest decline shown by happoshu beer (minus 33.8% versus the same period in 2009). Ordinary beer saw a 6.2% drop in demand, whereas sales of new genre beer increased by 20.3%.

Clear Asahi was the sole company’s brand which saw an increase in demand in January – March 2010 (+ 4.8% versus the same period in 2009).

16 April, 2010