India: Molson Coors Cobra India launces new strong beer

Molson Coors Cobra India brewery has launched a strong beer, Royal Brew, within months of bringing in British beer Carling, continuing to widen its product range aggressively in a high potential market, Economic Times reported on April 14.

The joint venture between US-based Molson Coors Brewing Company and the Cobra Indian Beer already markets two strong beer brands, King Cobra and Iceberg 9,000, besides Cobra premium beer, all brewed in its plant near Patna. It imports Carling.

"Our experience of the Indian market says that the consumer here prefers hard liquor over light. We have been facing competition from hard liquor such as whiskey. So we decided to launch a product in the strong beer segment," Peter H Coors, chairman at Molson Coors Company, said.

He said the strong beer would cater to customer demand in Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Bengal and Delhi.

After the stagnation of growth in developed markets such as the US and the UK, Molson Coors plans to shift its focus to emerging markets. "Favorable demographics, coupled with increasing focus of foreign brewers on product range and rising social acceptance of alcohol are expected to enable beer demand to grow swiftly in years to come," Coors said. He said the Indian beer industry is estimated to grow 12% a year to reach a size of 452 million cases by 2017.

Indian population consumed around 20 million hectolitres, or some 222 million cases, of beer in 2012, which translates into around 1.6 litres per person.

16 April, 2014