Japan & China: Suntory now seeing China as its most important market in the world

As 2021 marks the beginning of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, Tetsuho Kikuchi, director president of Suntory (China) Holding Co, shared his goals for the next five years, Shine.cn reported on February 8.

Kikuchi plans to further promote the Suntory brand to more regions in the country, hoping it becomes more of a household name in China.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company suffered a 5 percent retreat in its global business, while the Chinese market turned out to be a rare bright spot where Suntory saw positive figures for 2020 sustaining its performance in 2019 "thanks to China’s effective prevention and control of the pandemic and the steady economic recovery," he said.

“Based on the surprising performance of the Chinese market in 2020, our Japanese headquarters has asked us to further increase our sales in China from around 2 billion yuan (US$310 million) to 20 billion yuan over the next decade, expanding its business from the East China market to the whole country,” he added.

“We now see China as the most important market in the world, and Suntory wants to keep pace with China’s growing economy.”

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .