Asia Market Overview:
The Asian Beverage market is expanding. This market is enormous, with growth and potential to be more than a giant market. In brief, sales of beverages in China, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and India have a total of $561.7 billion in 2006. Japan have led sales in beverages, with more than $308.8 billion, followed by China with more than $163.8 billion. Thailand has reached more than $25.3 billion, India has seen an approximate sales of $44.3 billion for its beverage industry, and the Philippines has more than $19.4 billion in sales. In many Asian countries, there are expansion of markets where high quality, premium overseas branded products and safe products are increasingly having high demand. This demand are segmented between cultural groups and socio-economic groups, big division between urban and rural, especially in India and China. Modern retailing are more organized and has structured distribution, with supermarkets favoring food safety and country of origin.
“Modern retailing are more organized and have structured distribution, with supermarkets favoring food safety and country of origin”
premiumbev
About 21 percent of consumers today say beverages play a crucial part in picking which restaurants to visit for meals, and consumers aged 18 to 44 tend to use beverages for many occasions and events, including socializing. Several factors have contributed to the buying choices of younger consumers in Asia, such as the growing urban lifestyle, preferring for healthier food and beverages, having awareness of product options and having to prefer environmentally-friendly products. With more and more consumers growing Western tastes and pursuing a more mobile lifestyle, instant coffee is one of the great demands today, having had an expectation of coffee sales to increase 83 percent between 2009 and 2014. Other than that, tea has also been one of the popular drinks in many Asian countries today. There has been an introduction of ready-to-drink beverages, with interesting health benefits and flavors. Green tea, in particular, has grown in popularity, as well as energy drinks with artificial flavoring. This category is expected to grow over 50 percent since 2009. While Asian consumption of soft drinks is the lowest globally, this category has long acted as the important component responsible for the 30 percent consumption in Asia. Functional beverages such as sports drinks and diet aids, have also began to experience rising demand in this region. It is making its move to position itself in the international soft drink arena, with contribution to a total volume from 17 percent to estimated 20 percent in the last years.
“Functional beverages such as sports drinks and diet aids, have also began to experience rising demand in this region. It is making its move to position itself in the international soft drink arena, with contribution to a total volume from 17 percent to estimated 20 percent in the last years”
functionalfitnessbeer
In Asia, cafés have experienced expansion, with big cities having specialized coffee brands such as Starbucks, and some traditional cafés had to move their expansion focus to smaller cities, which still helped to promote the culture of coffee drinking among local consumers. Another important beverage that is dominating the Asian industry is the alcohol drinks. In India, whisky that are locally produced is ranked as the strongest performance in the market. In order for restaurants to stay relevant and meet consumer demands, they must increase their beverage offerings by including a variety of options for beer, cocktails and wine for different occasions. Adding in cocktails, and new wine, including flavorful and flavored whiskeys, can be a profitable decision. Without doing so, they would probably be missing out a key revenue source. It is important to note that approximately 15 percent of the products used in hotels and expensive restaurants in India are imported.
The Asian region is the driving global growth for beverage, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and cafés and hence, they can generate high profits from selling everything, from soda to spirits, beer and wine. At present, supermarkets have shown the fastest growth, despite experiencing saturation in cities. From 2015 to 2020, some Asian industries will experience rapid growth in shopping malls and convenience stores. In the upcoming future, domestic supermarket supply chain integration can be made stronger, using competitive differentiation. Due to increasing urbanization, changing lifestyles, and rising incomes, there is a need for diversified, sophisticated markets for beverages in Asia, with increase of demand for imported, processed and convenience food, in which distributor relationships become necessary, for a modern retail and more organized distribution network. This will promote interest in home cooking, and drives more demand for fresh foods, ingredients and suggestions for recipe by retailers.
Gulf Market Overview:
Deep knowledge and well established relationships are important to do business in Asia, which requires investment in developing understanding and, knowledge, as well as investing in the right people. The Middle east, on the other hand, and its neighbouring countries, have been recognized as one of the important growth markets for food and beverage industry. It is considered as an important emerging market for the industry, with China, Latin America, and China, as well as countries that are seen as “windows of opportunity”, such as North Africa, and India for the this industry. Emerging markets such as Asia and Middle East have enjoyed continuing growth, as developed markets may have to endure further economic hardship and fall in sales over the past years. Indeed, the Middle East has made its greatest jump, thanks to its economy that was greatly sturdy during the global recession, and has moved 4th from 20th, in the top emerging markets for food and beverage industry. This is because more than 90% of Middle East countries have depended largely on food imports, and taking chances that existed for importers, packagers, and manufacturers, to generate bigger and better business. In addition to this great improvement, the high population growth rate added to this marvellous progress, with the lavish availability of high quality raw materials that are certified, as well as, the increasing income levels of local consumers, which contributed to the fast and profitable food and beverage sector in the future.
dubaibanner
Some parts of Middle East such as Saudi Arabia has soft drinks value sales of 5.4 percent in 2011, with a forecast for growth of 7.9 percent in 2015. It has coffee and tea value sales of 5.06 percent and 2.84 percent in 2015 respectively. Recently, there has been a nearly 2,200 registration for café licences, with more than 90 in-shop and large scale coffee roasters in plans to open up business in the next months, predicting an expanding market for tea, and traditional coffee culture, which will promote investments in café, coffee and tea businesses, that are estimated to be worth between US $350 million and US $400 million. Tea drinkers are becoming increasingly picky and are aware of the current market – therefore, customers are not only demanding quality, but also sustainability from the tea products they bought. There have been an upcoming and rising trend in the current years, that sees consumers visiting and coming to cafés for work purposes and social gatherings. In 2013, this has been expansion and positive progress, with many independent cafés as well as a number of specialists opening outlets across the countries. Rising popularity of these outlets which are very huge across the Middle Eastern countries are due to the rising number of Arab expatriates moving to stay in the countries. This pushed the current cafés and bars, and promote economic boom in 2013, as the habit of studying, working and reading promote consumerism from drinking and staying in.
“Tea drinkers are becoming increasingly picky and are aware of the current market – therefore, customers are not only demanding quality, but also sustainability from the tea products they bought”
sustaintea
Some other trends observed is the 8.6 percent growth year-on-year forecast in healthy beverage categories compared to 2.9 percent growth in the carbonated category due to issues of sugary drinks consumption, led by the ministry of health. These key players have become adventurous in terms of innovating ways of packaging in the soft and hot drinks, to struggle more and drive sales in the region. Sports drinks are benefiting from a number of issues in the Middle East. Government campaigns have encouraged people to take more exercise in the fight against obesity. Energy drinks or sports drinks have been seen as a status symbol by the younger consumers, who buy the product in Saudi Arabia. This can be in an instance, such as relating to sporting, sports personalities. However, with the new Saudi legislations on strict consumption of energy drinks, it is a serious blow to those who are involved. There is a need to focus on two of the most fast moving soft drink categories in recent years, which are iced tea and sports drinks. Saudi Arabia is a big contributing country to iced tea consumption, where this is a drink that is taken for its refreshment qualities. Lebanon is now close behind in respect of volume sales. Lebanese demand has grown at a phenomenal rate as iced tea is viewed as a beverage of choice amongst younger consumers for casual consumption. Restrictions are also made by the UAE on the sale of energy drinks with high levels of caffeine, three years ago, in 2012. This leads to a bigger question to ponder on, whether other Arab states would eventually follow Saudi Arabia’s somewhat stricter ruling.
“Energy drinks or sports drinks have been seen as a status symbol by the younger consumers