No. 2 makers shake up drinks industry

OB, Lotte Liquor make big gains on larger market rivals Hite, Jinro


No. 2 brands of beer, soju and whisky are hot on the trail of front-runners in the Korean drinks market, industry data showed Tuesday.

In the beer market, Oriental Brewery, the country’s No. 2 beer maker since 1994, made big strides in the first quarter of the year beefing up its stake to 46.6 percent by shipment volume, according to the Korea Alcohol & Liquor Industry Association. Hite kept the lead with a 53.4 percent share.

OB narrowed the gap with Hite to 6.8 percent points from 15.2 percent points in the same period last year, KALIA data showed.

On a yearly basis, the gap shrank from 15.5 percent points in 2009 to 11.6 percent points in 2010.

By label, Hite’s hite and OB’s Cass Fresh are running neck-and-neck with 40.9 percent and 39.6 percent share each in the first quarter, the organization reported. With other Cass products like Cass Light and Cass Red taken into account, Cass outstrips hite by 1 percentage point.

Some industry observers attributed the tightening gap to rumors that OB greatly increased shipment volumes in an effort to promote its sell-off plan in coming months.

But others said the 59-year-old brewery actually succeeded in attracting more customers from regions where its sales had sagged.

The market still remains unpredictable. Hite integrated its marketing network in April with that of Jinro, Korea’s largest soju distiller, and demand for Hite’s Max beer has grown to claim nearly a 10 percent share. 

OB, meanwhile, is pinning high hopes on its first new brand in five years, OB Golden Larger, which it says contains 100 percent German hops and golden malt.

In the three-month period, the combined volume of beer shipped reached nearly 377 billion liters, up more than 9 percent from a year earlier, KALIA data showed. Soju shipments also increased 1.2 percent to about 295 billion liters.

Brisk marketing activities for mild soju and new products like Hite’s Dry Finish, as well as a consumption drop in “makgeolli,” a rice wine, lifted sales of the two Korean favorites, industry officials said.

In the soju market, Lotte Liquor BG took a leap forward in the first quarter to gain on Jinro.

Though Jinro’s Chamisul, the long-time No. 1 seller, stays atop with a 48.7 percent stake, the figure is down 1.3 percentage points on a year-on-year basis, according to KALIA.

But shares of Lotte’s Chum-Churum, which translates as “like the first time,” went up 0.8 percentage points to 14.6 percent from a year before.

Lotte said its shares in the soju sector have expanded every year since the 2005 launch of Chum-Churum.

“The market is witnessing a transformation due to aggressive marketing and sales promotion campaigns carried out by No. 2 companies, diversifying consumer tastes and an increasingly strong trend that customers pick out their favorite brand for themselves,” an industry official said.

For single malt whisky, two distilleries from Speyside, Scotland ― The Macallan and Glenfiddich ― switched their positions this year, according to industry data.

Between January and April, shares of The Macallan surged 10.5 percentage points to 46.2 percent from a year earlier, surpassing Glenfiddich by 8.7 percent points.

Glenfiddich, the world’s top-selling premium single malt whisky, saw its stake plunge 12.7 percent points from the four-month period in 2010.

“The reversal seems to have occurred because sales of The Macallan 12 years old grew 24.3 percent during the period compared with last year,” an official with The Macallan said.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)