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Foreign players tap into local market
Foreign beer company giants are looking to increase their market share in the country’s growing beer market as new players enter the fray.
While SABMiller, Carlsberg and Heineken have been operating in the country for some time, a new player, the Germany-based Bitburger Group, plans to open a brewery.
The Bitburger Group last month launched its beer brand in the Viet Nam market through its exclusive distributor, the Kinh Bac Investment and Trade Joint-Stock Company.
The group is expected to build a brewery in Viet Nam, Michael Meinardus, sales and marketing director of Bitburger, has said.
In March, brewing giant SABMiller Plc acquired a 50 per cent stake in the Viet Nam Dairy Product Joint-Stock Company (Vinamilk), becoming the sole shareholder in the SABMiller Viet Nam Joint Venture.
The SABMiller Viet Nam Joint Venture brewery, which is located in southern Binh Duong Province, supplies products to HCM City, Da Nang and the Mekong Delta region.
The brewery’s assets at the end of last year were US$31.8 million.
Carlsberg, the Danish beer company, owns 16 per cent of the shares in the Ha Noi Beer and Beverage Corporation (Habeco), and expects to acquire more shares of Habeco, Nguyen Van Viet, Habeco’s general director, has said.
Carlsberg and Habeco each hold a 45 per cent stake in the Ha Noi-Vung Tau Brewery Company.
Last June the company began construction of a US$42 million brewery in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.
The factory, which will have an annual capacity of 50 million litres in the first phase, and double that in the second phase, will supply Carlsberg and Ha Noi beer to the southern market.
The Sai Gon Beverage Corporation (Sabeco), the country’s largest brewer, has yet to select a strategic partner among the foreign brewers seeking to forge a parternship, including Dutch beer giant Heineken, US-based Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc, Belgian brewer InBev, Thai company Beverage and the Japanese-based Asahi Breweries Ltd.
vietnamnews
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