E-Malt.com News article: Japan: Young Japanese consumers embracing foreign beer brands

Sales of foreign beers in Japan are increasing due to their growing popularity and fashionable image among young people who had previously shied away from the beverages, The Japan News reported on November 19.

Attention is focused on whether foreign beer brands could halt a decline in the popularity of beer.

Many young men and women these days stop off at a restaurant offering a wide selection of beers on the east side of JR Shinjuku Station in Tokyo to enjoy conversation and a glass of the Dutch beer Heineken. The restaurant is adding foreign beers to its menu, including Guinness from Ireland, and also Belgian brands.

Significant commercial efforts to introduce foreign beer brands to the domestic market began in the 1980s, but their sales have been increasing in recent years.

Heineken’s domestic sales in 2014 increased by 11 percent compared to the previous year. In particular, sales of bottled beer were up 37 percent.

Budweiser, an American beer, also enjoyed a sales increase of 10 percent from a year earlier, while the Danish beer Carlsberg was up 19 percent year-on-year. According to the operator of the FamilyMart chain of convenience stores, sales of Mexico’s Corona Extra increased three times from a year earlier, while overall sales of foreign beer increased by 20 percent. The majority of people who buy foreign beers are said to be in their 20s to 40s.

Domestic shipments of beer and quasi-beer decreased for the 10th consecutive year in 2014. Despite the advancing trend of young people turning away from beer, international brands seem unaffected.

Rei Nagi, a researcher at the Dentsu Young Age Research Department at Dentsu Inc., said, “Their cool image attracts the young generation.” They also appear fashionable, since many of them are sold at bars and restaurants where young people gather, she added.

Prompted by the popularity of foreign beer, Kirin Brewery Co. in September switched all procurement of Heineken bottled beer, a brand with which it has a sales contract, from imported to domestically produced. Kirin assessed that its business growth is large enough to turn a profit even if Heineken is produced domestically, according to an official of the company in charge of foreign beer.

It used to take about four months to import bottles of beer from Holland, but domestic production will enable Kirin to sell fresher beer and respond to larger orders more quickly.

However, the foreign beer market is still small, accounting for only 1 percent of the total market, according to an estimate by Kirin. The popularity of famous domestic brands such as Asahi Super Dry and Suntory the Premium Malt’s is still very high.

“Japanese consumers have a strong obsession with quality,” said a senior official at a beer company. “We must make efforts to help them understand that foreign beers not only look fashionable but also have distinctively different tastes [to increase the market size].”



20 November, 2015