India’s largest beer producer United Breweries (UB) is trying to fight a decreasing market share with its new strong beer brand Kingfisher Storm. The beer is targeting drinkers of Carlsberg’s successful strong beer brand Carlsberg Elephant as well as those of the recently launched Tuborg Strong. India’s beer drinkers prefer strong beers which typically have between 5% and 7% ABV and which account for about 80% of the country’s overall sales.
UB wants to roll out the new product across India in the next 18 months. It will be the most aggressive product launch of UB in over eight years, said a company official, who wished to remain anonymous.
United Breweries , in which Heineken holds a 42.4% stake, is currently suffering from a lot of negative publicity from its chairman Vijay Mallya. The flamboyant billionaire was arrested last week in London but was granted bail on a £650,000 ($833,000) bond. (inside.beer, 19.4.2017)
Despite a declining market share, UB is still market leader with a 52% market share in India with different varieties of its Kingfisher brand (including Kingfisher Premium, Strong, Strong Ultra, Ultra Max, Blue and Buzz) . Second largest brewer is AB InBev with a 25% market share followed by Carlsberg, who entered the Indian beer market only 11 years ago in May 2006, with a 15.7% market share. The Danish brewer is aggressively expanding in the growing Indian market. The company lately announced to open its 11th Indian production facility in Arunachal Pradesh (inside.beer, 29.3.2017)
