Russia: Prohibition of wine imports from Moldova and Georgia boosted beer sales
According to “Bussines Analytica”, the Russian beer market has shown the lowest growth in 2005 – only by 6%. In such circumstances, brewers increase the turnover by taking away market shares from competitors rather than by increasing the number of beer consumers, The Union of Russian Brewer said June 13. “Baltika” Chairman Anton Artemiev anticipates important changes in the Russian beer market, which are explained by mutations in brand portfolios and the withdrawal of some important market players.
“After prohibiting wine imports from Moldova and Georgia, beer sales were evidently boosted,“ Artemiev said. “Hence, according to our April statistics, we estimate a market growth of nearly 6%, which is not bad at all.”
“I remember there were rumors about “Efes” intending to sell its Russian business, but these were just rumors.” Artemiev said. “Anyway, we do not afford to ignore the fact that theoretically this could happen. There are some big international breweries, like Anheuser-Busch, which are less active in Russia. The American brewer has even sold the rights to brew Budweiser to Heineken. We believe at one moment they could express the desire to acquire a big Russian brewer. In addition, there is still a big question about how “Ochakovo” will manage to control compensate business regression. If its results will continue to go down, (“Ochakovo” beer sales decreased 4.4% in 2005) we expect them to leave this business. Even if this won’t happen, I believe there will be only 4-5 big players on the Russian beer market,” Artemiev concluded.
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