Eduardo Luz, the general manager of InBev Romania, says that beer producers cannot expect sales growth of more than 10% this year, for each of their brands, given that the growth estimates of the beer market do not exceed 3%.
"The market will not see a double digit growth and I do not think it is realistic to expect such growth from any brand this year," stated Eduardo Luz, general manager of InBev Romania, the third leading player in the industry.
In addition, Luz says that the habits of beer consumers will change as a result of the economic crisis, with many set to buy fewer beer brands, and likely to go out to drink less often, preferring to have a drink at home instead.
"We are seeing many consumers that are moving from alcoholic beverages to beer now. At the same time, beer drinkers who used to buy several brands until recently, will allocate money for only one brand," said the representative of InBev Romania, a company which posted 188 million-euro turnover in 2007.
Luz says that the best-selling brand in the company’s portfolio is Bergenbier, a brand that generates half of the company’s sales, followed by Noroc and Beck’s. Besides these brands, InBev also sells Lowenbrau, Stella Artois, Leffe and the Hoegaarden white beer in Romania.
Even though Bergenbier has gone through rebranding recently, Luz says he does not intend to do the same for Noroc, the second best-selling brand of the company.
InBev’s boss added that besides the funds allocated to Bergenbier’s rebranding, which included both an upgrade of the production lines and the costs of the promotion campaign, InBev Romania does not intend to make any more investments this year and does not have restructuring plans, either.
At the same time, Luz says that InBev Romania will not take the name of Anheuser Busch this year, with the process postponed mainly because InBev’s Romanian branch went through another name change just two years ago, when it became InBev Romania from Interbrew Romania.
"InBev Romania will take the name of AB InBev. This is a formal process that takes time and we do not expect the change to happen this year. It is just a formality to us," the company official stated.
Luz would not reveal InBev Romania’s turnover last year or the company’s performance compared with the previous year, either.
According to the information in the company’s annual report, the local branch of the Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) group had a 19.2% market share last year, down 1.2% compared with the previous year, while sales went up by less than 2%, to four million hectolitres. "Over the last ten months we’ve been following an upward trend and I think we’re doing well," said the general manager, explaining the results in the company’s 2008 report.
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