For the overall alcoholic beverage market in USA, GuestMetrics' latest data in June reveals a divergence from past trends. Craft Beer's on-premise growth begins to slow down, and light beer losses are experiencing some mitigation. Premium lights dollar share losses is at -1.6%, after having being down -1.8% for Q1. Meanwhile, craft dollar share gains totaled 1.9% in the latest four weeks, falling short of the 2.3% share gain of Q1. Beer imports' dollar share losses also moderated slightly, down -0.3% in the recent four week period, after having been down -0.5% in Q1. Cider dollar share remained constant at 0.6% in the four weeks and Q1. As for styles, IPAs continue to be the fastest growing segment, gaining 1.5 dollar share points in the latest four weeks. Total alcohol volume moderated down to -1.9% in the latest four weeks, having been down -2.4% YTD. Wine was the only category with positive volumes the latest period, up 0.4% (but down -1.5% YTD). Beer volume losses slowed, down -3.8% during the latest four weeks versus the YTD decline of -4.1%. On a dollar basis, beer sales were down -0.6% latest four weeks, the only category in negative dollar territory. A look at the broader picture for the four weeks shows full service restaurant and bar traffic down -1.2%, a slight improvement from the YTD traffic drop of -1.4%. Sales also saw a small improvement, up 1.6% in the latest four weeks, compared to the 1.4% bump YTD.
For the month of June, SNA sales achieved +5.61% growth on MoM basis. The total YTD sales for the half year of 2014 is 168,918 cases which is +0.20% beyond target and +2.56% vs. past year. Taking into account that there were 252 kegs (30L) sold in June, the actual case-equivalent amount of sales is 169,620 cases. In term of depletion, we have 31,428 units sold in June, which is +8.31% growth vs. the same month of last year, or decline -2.91% YTD. However, this depletion number also includes sales of 99 kegs, which actually gives an additional 276 units of cases equivalent.
Shipment from Thailand is at 44,240 cases, bringing the YTD total shipment to the overall high YTD growth vs. last year shipment, contribute mainly due to the fact that shipment lead time from Thailand has increase significantly causing SNA having to stock more product in the warehouses. This temporary shipment growth is for SNA to stock the product during the summer time. The growth discrepancy when comparing to SNA sales and distributor’s depletion will dissipate as the winter months come in Q4.