The sale of global alcoholic drinks improved for all categories globally in 2010, with emerging markets reaffirming their role as the “main engine for growth”, according to BeverageDaily.com, citing Euromonitor.
According to Euromonitor’s newly published alcoholic drinks data 2010, global alcoholic drinks volumes grew by more than 1% compared to 0.3% growth in 2009.
Marlous Kuiper, the head of alcoholic drinks research at Euromonitor told BeverageDaily.com that emerging markets were less affected by the recession and those that were affected bounced back much quicker that the developed markets.
“Sales in Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America reaffirm their bullish credentials and are the key engine for global alcoholic drinks growth at the same time that North America, Western Europe and Eastern Europe are still in recessionary mood as far as the industry is concerned,” she said.
Euromonitor found that China in particular continues to impact the global market with 50% of all forecasted absolute volume growth coming from the country.
The importance of Asia Pacific is also seen when looking at company performances with the UB Group set to become the leading spirits producer by volume in 2011, she said.
Emerging middle classes, westernisation and aspirational consumption are fuelling the renewed resurgence of on-trade, according to the analyst.
In Asia Pacific, wine retained its strong growth trajectory in 2010, “Primarily on the back of still light red grape variants’ perceived beneficial cardiovascular properties and the embrace of western drinking habits by the scores of upward mobile young urbanites,” said Kuiper.
“Non-grape wine also retained its bullish performance leveraging on traditional credentials and economising propositions,” she added. Go to BeverageDaily.com for more