E-Malt.com News article: 3656

Vietnam: Companies such as Carlsberg A/S, the world's fifth-largest brewer, are using golf's growing popularity to market their products in East Asia's second-fastest-growing economy after China. Copenhagen-based Carlsberg spent about $600,000 to sponsor this month's Carlsberg Masters Vietnam, the nation's third-ever professional golf tournament and its first since 1997.

“It's a rapidly growing sport,'' said Henrik Andersen, 37, Carlsberg's general director in Vietnam. “There's been quite strong growth in purchasing power, especially in the cities but also in some of the provinces. People are getting more money and spending more on premium products.''

Carlsberg's sales in Vietnam have grown an average 20 percent for the past three years, double the rate for the country's overall beer market, Andersen said in an interview in Hanoi, without giving details. The company spent at the “lower end'' of the $600,000 to $3.5 million required to be lead sponsor of an Asian golf tour event, he said.

Vietnam's economy grew 7.2 percent in 2003 as industry and construction expanded 10 percent and exports surged 19 percent, according to government reports. That growth rate was second only to China's 9.1 percent among 11 East and Southeast Asian economies tracked by Bloomberg.

Consumer spending is growing along with the economy, said John Shrimpton, a director of Dragon Capital in Ho Chi Minh City, which manages two Dublin-listed funds with $190 million invested in Vietnam.

In the four years to 2003, Vietnam's average annual income rose 23 percent to $455, according to the Asian Development Bank. Car sales have jumped more than sevenfold since 1998, rising 59 percent last year to 42,557 units, according to the Vietnam automakers' association, whose members include local partners of Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG.


17 November, 2004