A few days ago, foreign beer giant Heineken Group announced that in 2018 the company's revenue increased by 6.1%, increased 2% per 100 liters, and the overall sales of beer increased by 4.2%. In 2018, the net profit of the domestic brewery Lanzhou Yellow River fell 516.05% compared with the previous year, and its revenue decreased by 14.68% compared with the previous year. Analysts say that China's beer market continues to shrink and rise in price, and industry differentiation is still intensifying.
The differentiation of beer industry is continuing
From January to December 2018, the cumulative output of beer enterprises above the scale of China reached 38.12 million kiloliters, an increase of 0.5% over the same period last year. According to Fang Gang, an expert in beer industry, from the overall market performance, the head enterprises are close to each other, the foreign beer enterprises are relatively active, and the regional enterprises such as Pearl River Beer in domestic enterprises are doing well: "On the whole, the beer industry is relatively stable, but the differentiation is still intensifying."
Medium and high-end segments into important markets
Analysts at CITIC Construction Investment said that China's beer market has crossed the growth period of total volume. Current total consumption is basically stable or fluctuates slightly. The future development theme of the industry will be the promotion of ton price and profit margin, which will become a strong factor driving the growth of the industry's total revenue and total profit.
From the market situation, since 2018, the main beer enterprises have been pushing new products and establishing brands intensively for the high and middle price, and the high and middle segment market has become a new battlefield of competition.
Beer industry is expected to enjoy a "dividend" this year
How will the beer market develop in 2019? Fang Gang believes that unless there is another giant cooperation, the current forecast will remain stable. Zhu Danpeng thinks that the beer market has presented a dumbbell structure in recent years. After five years’development, the whole beer industry may become olive-shaped structure. There are fewer and fewer head enterprises. They may change from five giants to three giants. The small enterprises in the tail have less and fewer living environment and no living space. Therefore, he judges that in 2019, the beer market in China will show a trend of shrinking in volume and rising in price. Differentiation will continue to intensify with the intervention of capital.
According to some industry viewpoints, since the dividend can be extended to the second year, it is expected to enter a period of rapid increase in profitability in 2019 after the price hike in 2018.
