Corona Beer Case Study Essay

In the United States the beer industries are regulated by the state and the federal governments. The state and the federal government pass their opinions in term of production, advertisement, distribution,

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

Boston Beer’s strategy is primarily focused on growth through differentiation. The sources of its competitive advantage can be classified as a company that provides high quality beer with unique flavors, a market driven approach, and a very efficient contract brewing strategy.

Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.

Such cross border deals have provided significant benefits to the brewing giants. This has given them ownership of local brands propelling them into dominant market positions around the world as global brands sell at significantly higher prices and the margins are much better as compared to the local beers.

At the August 1 Nelson Memorial Doubles Tournament, Carlisle Nostrame read a letter from Bob Nelson, the son of George and Betty, and thanked the Nelson Family for continuing to sponsor the tournament. Part of the letter reads as follows

iii. Import beer companies: These companies include Beck’s(Germany), Heineken (Holland) and Corona (Mexico). They control about 12% of the region’s market. However, these companies are seen to operate at disadvantage due to higher shipping costs, weaker distribution networks and an inability to control product freshness

Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).

Corona had a success of almost one decade in the Japanese market also due to the clear and structured partnership between Modelo, Export Brands International and

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Anheuser-Busch is the leading American brewer. The company is one of the largest theme park operators in the United States, a major manufacturer of aluminum cans and one of the world’s largest recyclers of aluminum cans. Our diverse background also includes malt production, rice milling, real estate development, turf farming, label printing and transportation services.

As the world’s largest brewer, AB Inbev has the ability to compete in new and foreign markets as a strong threat. Due to their enormous capital and expansion-based strategy, they can enter any market as a challenger and shutdown competition to become the leading brewer in this market. As an aggregated note we can also see this in domestic or already dominated markets because due to economics of scale they can achieve differentiated products at a low cost.

Rivalry in the craft beer industry is high and in addition to the excise tax and overall high manufacturing cost have promoted mergers and acquisitions in order to consolidate and globalize the industry. Anheuser-Busch InBev merged with Belgium-based Inbev as one of the major transactions in 2008, forming Anheuser-Busch InBev. Heineken (HEINY) another major brewer, acquired the beer business of FEMSA in 2010. As in 2013, Anheuser- Busch InBev one of the market leaders acquired Grupo Modelo, Mexican brewer. In the following year 2014, Anheuser- Busch InBev reacquire Oriental Brewery, South Korea brewer. (Sharon Bailey) The acquisitions combined their market share and currently owns 41.2 percent of the US market.(Statista)

Despite the dominance of Carlsberg, in its annual report BGD could lay claim to being the largest Scandinavian beer exporter. This was because Carlsberg placed emphasis on licensing agreements or local production for its foreign markets, while BGD’s strategy was export led: ‘Eighty-three out of every hundred bottles of beer that we produce are sold in foreign markets.’ By 1995 the percentage of export sales by region of the world was as follows: western Europe 63 per cent, the Americas 10 per cent, eastern Europe 22 per cent, others 5 per cent. The development of BGD’s operations in some of these markets is now reviewed.

1.) Why do companies like Pepsi need to globalize? What are the various ways in which foreign companies can enter a foreign market? What hurdles and problems did Pepsi Face when it tried to enter India during the 1980s?

|The global beer industry is dominated by large corporations who have merged with rivals to increase their global and domestic market share. |