China to account for over 1/4 of Global Beer Consumption by 2013

According to Canadean's latest Global Beer Trends report, global beer consumption will top 2 billion hectoliters by 2013. Although beer consumption has been affected by the global economic crisis, at a global level growth is still relatively robust, with Canadean predicting an average growth rate of 2.8 percent between 2009 and 2015.

However this global headline figure masks significant differences at a regional level. In Asia, beer consumption is predicted to grow by 5 percent(CAGR) between 2009 and 2015. The African beer market is also predicted to grow by 5 percent (CAGR) with Latin America expected to deliver a CAGR of just over 3 percent and the Middle East a CAGR of 5.5 percent over the same period. In contrast, the East European market is only expected to grow by 1.5 percent (CAGR), whilst beer consumption in North America is forecast to deliver a CAGR of just 0.5 percent and Western Europe is expected to register a marginal decline.

The strong performance of the Asian beer market means that the region is forecast to account for 38 percent of total beer consumption by 2015. The Asian market is of course dominated by China, and Canadean predicts that in 2015 China alone will account for over a quarter of all beer consumption worldwide. The Chinese beer market is forecast to reach 573 mhls by the end of the forecast period, over twice the size of the USA, the second largest beer market in the world.

Canadean’s Global Beer Trends data also reveals that Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Angola and India are all predicted to register double digit annual growth between 2009 and 2015. Indeed the Vietnamese market is forecast to deliver over 8 percent of total incremental global beer volume between 2009 and 2015. Germany, Netherlands, Canada, France and the UK are all expected to continue to decline and in West Europe only Finland, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Spain are expected to see any growth.

The Russian beer market was hit harder than most by the economic crisis, the fall in consumer confidence caused by the global economic downturn being exacerbated by a tripling of the beer excise duty. This market was one of the star performers before the crisis, with a CAGR of over 11 percent between 1999 and 2008.

However, 2009 saw a fall of nearly 4 percent, which was compounded by a further fall of 7 percent in 2010. Canadean predicts that the Russian beer market will return to growth, but not at anything like the pre-crisis levels. For the period 2011 to 2015, assuming no further rise in excise duty, or legislative restrictions on beer sales, Canadean predicts a CAGR of just under 4 percent.

Canadean's Global Beer Trends report also includes a ranking of the world's leading brewers. This shows that the four largest brewing groups (A-BInBev, SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg) now account for a combined share of 42 percent of all beer sold worldwide. A wealth of further data on the operations of the world's leading brewing groups can be found in Canadean's Global Brewer Analyser which details each brewer's operations on a market by market basis, showing not only where brewers derive volume, but also whether they operate via owned subsidiaries, through licensed brewing, or through exports.

Overall, Canadean sees global beer market growth slowing slightly, but with average global per capita consumption forecast at just 30 liters per capita in 2015, there is still plenty of potential for further growth.