Samba Beer in Japan

Samba Beer Report

1.0 Introduction

Samba Beer(SB) is a Brazilian beer which has currently got about 25% of the LA market, at the moment the company is looking to diversify into the Japanese Market. SB has asked us to draft a report on indicators, which we consider necessary to make the product a success in the Japanese market. We also need to consider the organic aspect and green look of our company; we need to make sure that the company we are representing looks green in the current climate. Being green means that people are more likely to buy the product because people feel better if they are buying green goods. Samba beer has a large alcohol content, much larger than most beers. This is a USP of samba beer and means that we have some marketing tools we can use. There is a big Brazilian influence in the Japanese market.

2.0 Market Opportunities

Japan has about 124 million people and consists of four islands, Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Japan is the second largest economy in the world. Japan also has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the current population growth rate near 0%. The Japanese market of the 1990's is finally coming out of a mild recession. According to the IMF, Japan's economic outlook for 2004 and 2005 looks very strong with an estimated 4.5% growth in 2004.

The current volume of beer being sold in Japan is approximately 6 534000 kiloliters per year, which is down about 10% from of its peak of around 7 125 000 kiloliters in 1995. Japan remains one of the top 10 overall beer-consuming nations in the world and consumers have a lot of disposable income. Market share can be broken down into macro-brewed beers with 52.1%, happoshu (beer containing less than 67% malted barley) 46.4%, micros 0.5%, and imports 1%. Four giant brewing companies these are Asahi 38.4%, Kirin 36.2%, Sapporo 14.1% and Suntory 10.5% dominate the industry in Japan.

The Japanese beer industry is again stagnate because it doesn't know which of the big beers will be big in the next 10 years The early 1990s saw a big rise of imported beer, getting about 5% of the beer market. However, this was mainly due to the importation of big name lagers from huge corporations. After the imported beer boom, the late 90s and early2000's saw the rise of the happoshu market. Despite retaining a significant market share, happoshu has been on a slippery slope since mid-2003.

The current market size of the beer industry, including happoshu, in Japan is 6 534 000 kilolitres, which is down about 11% from its peak in 1994. The beer market in Japan has matured, but is still the seventh largest beer industry in the world, in a country with high disposable income. The imported beer market currently represents only about 1% of total sales, but given the large amount of contract brewing that major Japanese breweries

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