South Korea: Oriental Brewery and Hitejinro engaged in a price war amid summer heat wave

South Korea’s Oriental Brewery (OB) and Hitejinro are engaged in a price war amid the summer heat wave, The Korea Times reported on July 19.

OB started the competition last month by offering discounts over 40 percent to buyers of cases of 24 350-milliliter beer cans ― selling them for 19,900 won ($15.63) in large grocery stores. The sales event began on June 15, and sold out all stocks in just nine days. It resumed the offer again on July 5.

"We have been running promotional events every year to satisfy consumers' various demands. Sometimes we bundle six beer cans and sometimes we bundle eight," an OB official said. "This year, our marketing team has decided to make it 24, which is an unprecedentedly large number."

After seeing OB's marketing event go off successfully, Hitejinro also started a discount promotion for its Terra beer products ― also 24 cans with 350-milliliter volume ― starting on June 26. Terra was sold for 19,800 won, 100 won cheaper than OB's discounted price.

"We started the event to meet with intensifying promotional competition for beer products in summer. Price competitiveness is very important for the domestic beer market in winning the overall market share. Even a 100 won price difference can raise the company's domestic-consumption beer market share," a Hitejinro Official said.

OB said its promotional event wasn't specifically a response to Hitejinro's move.

"Of course, we always keep an eye on our rival's products and their marketing business. But, we don't run special promotional events only to compete with our rival's product," the OB official added.

OB has been dominating the domestic beer market with the popular beer brand Cass since 2012. According to global market research firm Nielson Korea, OB's market share for overall beer products showed 42.8 percent to rank the No.1 position between January and May this year. Hitejinro is right behind OB with about 38 percent of the market share.

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