Rwanda: Skol Brewery grows market share by 20% this year

Skol Brewery Rwanda Ltd grew its market share by 20 per cent in 2018 from 5 per cent in 2010, officials have said.

The development was announced on December 18 as the local beer manufacturer unveiled its brand new ‘SKOL Select’ beer on the market.

Ivan Wulffaert, the Skol Brewery General Manager said the growth in market share is largely due to Rwandan customer base development in appetite of the high quality beer and different varieties.

This, they say, resulted into the brewer’s increasing production and distribution to a widening consumer base.

“One of the key indications of Skol Brewery’s growing market share on Rwandan market is that the brewer’s distribution has grown by 30 times in the past seven years. Which shows that Rwandan consumers are really looking for different beers and express high desire to taste different quality products,”

“That is why we have Skol Select on the market because we want to diversify our brands to beer consumers,” said Wulffaert.

Anita Haguma, Skol Brewery Rwanda’s Marketing Director, said “At the beginning, we had a plan to reach our market share of 20 per cent by 2020 but we hit the target sooner.”

Going forward, Wulffaert said that the firm is going keep working to meet the consumers’ expectations.

Skol’s current highest cost of production lies mainly in malt, fuel, electricity and hops.

“I can say that malt is the biggest cost factor in beer followed by fuel. We are surprised that fuel has more to do with ingredients than the functioning of the factory, it is our second biggest cost because we need to avail hot water, we need to boil water before we adding malt,” said Wulffaert.

In regards to electricity costs, Wulffaert said this is the third largest expenditure for the firm.

“It is the third biggest cost. Sometimes we have power cuts, it is not stable whereas the factory needs to function,” he added.

In the future, the brewer says that they are eager to further grow its market share in Rwanda by not only increasing the production but also maintaining the high quality of its beer.

So far, Skol Brewery Rwanda has 350 employees plus over 100 temporary workers working on daily basis compared to 50 employees that the factory had when it started operating in the country seven years ago.

The local brewery maker on Tuesday unveiled its brand new ‘Skol Select’ beer which they say has a refined taste in its ingredient composition.

The beer has an alcohol percentage of 5.5 and is sold in 33cl bottles.

The beer is already available in crates of twenty-four 33cl bottles at a retail price of Rwf 700 per bottle.

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