E-Malt.com News article: India: Asia Pacific Breweries’ Beer brand eyes foreign markets

Asia Pacific Breweries is exploring the possibility of taking its “Cannon 10000” brand beyond India. The brand is now sold only in India.

“We have already started test marketing in Singapore. Depending on the response, we will decide the future action,” Chetan Gupta, marketing manager (India), said here today. Sri Lanka is also on the company’s radar.

Cannon falls under the strong beer category and there is hardly any market for it in the West. “But definitely there is a serious consideration of taking Cannon beyond India,” Gupta said.

More launches

Asia Pacific Breweries, which recently launched its flagship brand Tiger in the country, will come out with more brands in the strong beer category this year. “There are more up the sleeves. East is one of the fastest growing beer markets. We expect 12-15 per cent growth here this year,” he said.

The company is producing the Tiger beer from its new Sangareddy facility in Andhra Pradesh. The brewery was set up in a joint venture with the C.K. Jaipuria Group. The beer was earlier imported and was available at exclusive outlets.

The joint venture, called Asia Pacific Breweries Pearl Pvt Ltd, has invested $20 million (Rs 80 crore) in the brewery with a capacity of half-a-million hectolitres (hecto is 100 litres), scalable to a million hectolitres.

“This segment in India was less than 1 per cent of the total beer market. But the potential to grow is high. In countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, it is more than 10 per cent,” said Gupta.

The Singapore-based company has also invested around Rs 100 crore in Aurangabad through another joint venture, which produces the Cannon 10,000 and Arlem brands. The company holds a 67 per cent stake in both the joint ventures and its Indian arm, Asia Pacific Breweries Limited.

The brewery is also looking for acquisition opportunities in India.

“With the projected growth, we will need to expand capacities. It will be both organic and inorganic,” Gupta said. The company is looking at breweries for possible buyouts and may also go for contract production agreement, Gupta said.


09 September, 2009