Brau Union Romania has reached the sales target for Heineken on the Romanian market in less than four months since the official launch and announces it is ready to start the production of this brand in Romania.
"When we launched the Heineken brand on the Romanian market we did not think we would hit the sales target so soon. I think the market has responded so well because we were already present through imports and the brand was very well known to consumers," says Ilco Kwast, group manager with Heineken Netherlands, world's fourth largest brewer, which Brau Union Romania is part of.
The brand had been imported until the official launch on the Romanian market (August 2004), a reason why the price had been double the price of rival super-premium beers and sales had been insignificant.
After this date, Heineken started being bottled in Romania.
Heineken officials said at the time of the launch that they were expecting to see an annual sales volume of 30,000-40,000 hectolitres before starting production on the Romanian market.
"We have hit sales targets in only four months since the launch. At this moment, we are about to start production on the domestic market. We are prepared for this and I do not think it will take us more than one year to produce Heineken on the Romanian market. All international brands are already present on this market and it has been quite a challenge for us to enter Romania," Kwast says.
According to AC Nielsen research, the market share of Heineken climbed from 1.6% to 10.4% in the hotel, restaurants and catering network during the June-September 2004 period, while on the retail market it reached a 5.2% market share.
During this period, 30,000 hectolitres (worth about 400,000 euros) of Heineken beer were sold on the Romanian market.
Performance is good considering the beer market will this year register a 2% decline year-on-year because of the rainy summer that eroded the sales of the main players on this market.
The super-premium beer segment accounts for about 3% of the total Romanian beer market, namely 360,000 hectolitres per year. The main rivals of Heineken are GOSSER, Stella Artois, Beck's, Carlsberg and Tuborg.
Heineken is the world's fourth largest brewer, with annual sales exceeding 9 billion euros. In Romania, Brau Union registers annual sales standing at above 110 million euros.
Prior to its international takeover by Heineken, Brau Union included a super-premium beer brand in its portfolio, namely GOSSER.
The company has recently announced it would close, by the end of this month, its production capacity in Arad as part of its cost cutting and activity consolidation policy. At the same time, the company had announced earlier it would close its Reghin-based brewery.
The Romanian beer market is one of the most competitive ones in Europe.
stelian.negrea@zf.ro
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