Poland: Poland's top three brewers increased beer sales 7.2% to 32.5 mln hl in 2006
Browary Polskie, a grouping of Poland's three largest breweries, said its members sold 7.2% more beer year-on-year (y/y) to a total of 32.5 mln hectolitres (hl) in 2006 against 30.3 mln hl in 2005, the association said in a report Wednesday, according to Interfax Central Europe, February 7.
"Good results of the brewing industry last year reflect positive external factors: the FIFA World Cup and a hot summer," said Mark
Bowman, the general director of Poland's top brewer, SABMiller-owned Kompania Piwowarska. "The increase of consumer wealth was also an important factor."
Browary Polskie expects the sales volume to rise 2-3% in 2007. "Such growth as last year will be hard to repeat, but we would like to see beer sales rise by 2-3% this year," Browary Polskie President Pawel Sudol told a press conference, as reported by the state-owned news agency PAP.
He added that per-capita beer consumption in Poland is approaching the average in the European Union.
"As a sector we are prepared for higher sales as the sector's production capacities amounted to 35-36 mln hl in 2006, but we try to be cautious in our forecasts," Sudol said. "Beer consumption in Poland amounts to 86-87 litres per capita annually, which means that we almost reached the average EU level."
Beer exports totalled 880,000 hl in 2006, up from 872,000 hl in 2005. The three brewers that form Browary Polskie - Kompania Piwowarska, Heineken-owned Zywiec and Carlsberg-owned listed Polish brewer Carlsberg
Okocim - have a total market share of 90%. The sector estimates that it paid PLN 2.73 bln excise tax in 2006 to the state budget.
Înapoi
(libra 0.7813 sec.)