Foreign Market Entry and Diversification Essay

• There is a change in consumers’ preferences in terms of drinking beer in stead of drinking wine, i.e. in Latin America.

“The beer industry in the United States generates $75 Billion in annual sales.” (Abelli, 4)

     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 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.

For many years, beer companies had faced many economic challenges. In economic sphere, the beer company has reached a maturity stage and the growth has been moderate. In this maturity stage it is very hard for any one company to takeover the market form its competitors because of the tremendous competition. Expanding into foreign market is also one of the concerns for Canadian companies in this era. But apart from this there are some facts, which reflect the bright side of the beer economy in the Canadian industry and those are

SABMiller and Diageo are two largest beer producer in Africa. ”SABMiller, if combined with its partnership with France's Castel Group, sells roughly 60% Africa’s beer by volume. Diageo’s also expands its operation successfully that Senator Keg, its supercheap beer, is also now number two most popular beers in Kenya. As these giant brewers monopolized Africa’s beer market, it can be said that the market has an oligopoly market structure, and both pursue identic operations, so the market can be labeled as competitive. The interdependence that is happening between both brewers makes the competition happens. As SABMiller produces Impala that is half price from its previous beer Manica, Diageo produces Senator Keg to balance it. Diageo

Political –Governments tend to exercise significant control over beer as it contains alcohol which has caused many problems in society and has addicted people. This attention from the government will affect Heineken in sale volume in the market. Many governments have imposed heavy taxes on liquor and beer imports, and with globalisation many brewers are looking for new markets where they can gain maximal profits. This proves to be a threat for Heineken. Heineken must conduct thorough research on countries policies on alcohol such as drinking in public, alcohol contents in drinks, legal drinking ages and must strategically plan their integration into these markets based on the research.

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

Within the craft beer market, consumers have many products to chose. A product is anything offered within a market that which fulfills a want or need (Armstrong & Kotler, 2015). In 2012, over 1,750 breweries operated in the United States (U.S.), with over 1,920 the following year (Brewers,

The situation can even explode for Export Brands International, as large beers conglomerates with tremendous power, are targeting the same segment and are creating similar beers. We have the real example of Anheuser-Busch new Bud Light Lime which was selling extremely well in the United States attacking Corona position and following the traces of the

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.

Although sales of premium brands have fallen in a steady response to the growing popularity of the craft beer. The industry revenue has been stable over the past 5 years. As a result, from 2011 to 2016 the industry revenue is expected an increase and growth annually at 6.7 percent over the five years,with a total of $39.5 billion . (IBISWorld iExpert) In the long-term, these numbers are expected that grow 0.9 percent annually within the next five years. The potential growth will be seen in the traditional and premium beer sector. As a response, the giant companies in the industry Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors look forward into the merges and acquisitions as a strategy to maintain market dominance. The strategy is based on the

Meanwhile, since Grolsch used other brewers for distribution while importing beer into foreign countries, the ongoing industry consolidation often led to a need for changing distributors. In several of their markets Grolsch was already on its third or fourth distributor in the span of 15 years. Besides the political, economic, and logistical issues Grolsch had to adapt to, they also were adapting to cultural differences. Their marketing campaigns would vary significantly from market-to-market. While their ability to be nimble, change strategies, and adapt where necessary has been a benefit, it has also been limiting in that Grolsch has struggled to build a consistent brand image and market position in several of its key markets. For example, even though the UK accounted for 25% of Grolsch’s volume, they still only held 1.5% of the UK market. Further, operations have been impacted by the consistent turnover of distributors in several important markets. Grolsch’s adaptation strategy has kept them nimble but has prevented any large scale and stability in certain countries outside the Netherlands.

Also it rationalise its Brand portfolio in USA 50 to 12. SABMiller’s trading strategy reflects according to the report that it has ability to get success in the developing economies, where earnings are in the soft currencies and growth potential is more due to lack of competition in less penetrated market (i.e. most of the Europe). SABMiller usually operates in countries with rising per capita spending, as well as with growing Gross Domestic Product higher than the world average. E.g. China little market share but marvellous development potential

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