Foreign Wines rush to Snatch Market Share in Fujian

A lot of outstanding wine dealers from Fujian Province were invited to participate in the 2009 Spring China National Sugar and Alcoholic Commodities Fair opened in Chengdu on March 24th, 2009 and was received warmly by the wine producers.

One of the wine dealers told journalist from China Wine News that impacted by financial crisis, performance of a lot of foreign wine enterprises has been dropping, so they shift their market emphasis to China which is less impacted. As a major wine consumption province, Fujian is inevitably a place of strategic importance.

   Global financial crisis has led to sales volume of majority of wine enterprises to decrease. Average growth rate of global top 10 wine enterprises is negative 4.6%, but in China, market is different and favorable. Data shows that sales revenue and pre-tax profit rose by 32.9% and 37.9% respectively from January through November, 2008. Sales of Changyu reached 890,000,000 yuan in 2008, moving forward from the 10^th place to the 7^th place.

As foreign wines are rushing to China, domestic medium and low grade brands will face heavy pressure and market pattern will be reshuffled. The first line brands, such as Changyu and Great Wall produce high-end wine priced at several thousands so as to compete with foreign wines in medium and high end market.

Foreign wines entered Fujian 3 years ago, but they are snatching market share more obviously this year. Besides supermarkets, franchised stores, clubs and bars, marketing channels of foreign even include group purchase and gift market.

 Industry insiders think fierce competition in wine market is inevitable this year. In particular, medium and high end foreign wines may reduce price after exchange rate changes, which will have certain impact on domestic medium and high grade wine market.