Japan: Asahi Breweries Ltd. announced on April 19 that it will launch "Shin-Nama", a so-called "third category" beer on March 20 to challenge its three major rivals. Kyodo News cited President Koichi Ikeda saying that the company hopes to capture 30 % of the fast-growing market. Asahi Breweries Ltd.'s pre-launch shipments of "Shin-Nama" to wholesalers exceeded 2 million cases ahead of its debut on store shelves.

Asahi plans to ship nearly 3 million cases of its "Asahi Shin-Nama" in April alone and to rack up sales of 22 million cases by Dec. 31.

Third-category drinks are beer-like alcoholic beverages, which, unlike conventional beer, use ingredients other than malt and wheat and thus are subject to lower liquor taxes. Specifically, the government charges a 24.20 yen tax for every 350 milliliters of third-category drink, compared with 77.70 yen for regular beer and 46.99 yen for "happoshu" low-malt beer.

Sales of third-category beer have kept increasing sharply because of their low prices, capturing 8 % of the entire beer market in March.

Sapporo Breweries Ltd., of Sapporo Holdings Ltd., has had huge success since its February 2004 introduction of "Draft One." The product doesn't contain malt or wheat, so it is categorized as neither a regular beer nor a " happoshu" beer, freeing it from Japan's high taxes on beer. The second-biggest brewer, Kirin Brewery Co., has said shipments of its "Kirin Nodogoshi" ahead of the April 6 product launch came to 1.6 million cases, the highest for its new product lineups in last five years. Kirin said the product shipments exceeded 2.5 million cases as of Monday.

For April, shipments are projected to treble over the previous month, with Kirin Brewery Co. expecting to ship 3.5 million cases, Sapporo Breweries Ltd. 2 million, and Suntory Ltd. 700,000 to 800,000 cases. One case holds 20 633-ml bottles.

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