Romania: Bergenbier brand helped Interbrew Romania to boost sales by 31% in January-September 2006
InBev’s local subsidiary, Interbrew Romania, reported a 31% increase in sales in January-September 2006, the biggest growth rate reported by an InBev group’s affiliate in the Central and Eastern Europe, Ziarul Financiar published November 10.
Interbrew, Romania’s third brewer by volume, performed a growth rate which is double than the InBev’s Russian affiliate (16.2%) and which surpassed by 9 p.p. the Ukrainian branch on InBev. The three markets fueled a 14% increase of InBev’s sales in Eastern Europe.
Interbrew Romania’s sales in January-September 2006 overcame the market’s needs and were three times larger than the company officials’ preliminary estimates.
“This outstanding performance is mainly due to our Bergenbier brand which showed a speedy growth exceeding the sector’s growth during the first nine months of 2006,” Mihai Ghyka stated.
Ghyka also said that Stella Artois and Beck’s premium brands succeeded an aggregated progress of sales of 21.5%.
According to the company’s figures, Interbrew’s market share in January-September reached 21.9% against a 21.5% stake posted at the end of 2005.
Starting with March 2007, Interbrew Romania will proceed upon the merger with Efes Brewery which was entirely purchased in 2006 by InBev. The new company shall be named InBev Romania. In May this year, InBev paid EUR20.8 million to Efes Breweries International to acquire 49.99% in their Ploiesti-based subsidiary, Interbrew Efes Brewery. Thus, InBev reached a 100% stake in Interbrew Efes Brewery. The beer plant in Ploiesti has a production capacity of 1.8 million hl per year.
In order to cement its position in the PET segment, Interbrew Romania released in early spring of 2006 the Lowenbrau brand which aims for a 3-5 market share. According to company’s officials’ assessment, Lowenbrau shall capitalize 15% of Interbrew Romania’s PET production on the local market. In 2006 Interbrew purchased a PET filling line worth EUR7 million at Ploiesti brewery. The new line has a capacity of 18,000 2l bottles per hour.
The Romanian beer market is currently estimated at over EUR600 million with a reported sales volume of 15.2 million hl in 2005. According to the sector’s main estimations, beer sales will expand by 15% in 2006. Interbrew’s main competitors are Brau Union, Ursus Breweries, URBB, European Drinks and Bere Mures.
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