Republic of Korea: Budweiser Budvar is launching a beer export to the Republic of Korea

These days, Budweiser Budvar, N.C. is dispatching its first beer containers for new customers in the Republic of Korea, launching thus commercial activities in this country, according to company’s press release, May 24. Budweiser Budvar has been enabled to export to the Republic of Korea since 2004 when following an 8-year-long trademark dispute it finally gained the “Budějovický Budvar” trademark as well as the right to use the “Budweiser Budvar, N.C.” as the producer’s designation. Setting up the export took a very long time as the Korean market is quite complicated and exotic compared to European terms. Additionally, searching for a suitable importer also turned out to be difficult.

“We considered the Korean market prospective and feel an interesting commercial opportunity there. Whilst the overall beer consumption has been stagnating in Korea, the demand for imported beers has been slowly growing for some time. As an 11% increase is expected by 2011, the imported beers will boost its share on the Korean market,” says Budweiser Budvar’s business manager, Robert Chrt, adding “We anticipate selling more than 1,000 hectolitres of lager in Korea this year”.

“We are going to export our Budějovický Budvar Pale Lager entirely in 0.33 litre bottles. The first May dispatch contains 300 hectolitres,” says Budweiser Budvar export manager for Asia, Tomáš Bártů.

Budějovický Budvar lager is going to be supplied into all the main distribution channels – hypermarkets, independent retail stores, classy restaurants and bars. It is going to join the expensive imported beers trademarks, with the main consumers being males from the medium to high income groups.

The annual beer consumption in Korea amounts to about 35 litres per person. In 2005, 16.7 million hectolitres of beer were drunk there, which is pretty much the same as in the Czech Republic. Although the number of inhabitants is nearly five times more, (48 million people).