With the current population of 93.7 million, each Vietnamese person consumed an annual average of 42 liters of beer, 1.5 times higher than the figure of two years ago, said Nguyen Van Viet, Chairman of VBA at the Association meeting on March 9.
The beer industry expects to produce 4.1 billion beer liters in the next 4 years.
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Saigon Alcohol Beer and Beverage (Sabeco), Vietnam’s largest brewer, has produced 1.77 billion beer liters alone, an increase of 6.6% year-on-year, while that of the domestic second largest brewer, Hanoi Alcohol Beer and Beverage (Habeco), stood at 657.6 million liters, down 6.5% over the last year period.
In 2017, brewers in Vietnam contributed VND50 trillion (US$2.2 billion) to the state budget, doubling the figure 3 years ago.
The beer industry expects to produce 4.1 billion beer liters in the next 4 years, and up to 4.6 billion beer liters in 2025, VBA said. By 2035, this number is expected to reach 5.6 billion liters. Accordingly, beer production in the next two decades will be 1.5 times higher the beer production in 2017.
Despite growing beer consumption, Viet stated, the beer market growth rate is only at two-thirds of that in 2016. However, its attraction to foreign investors remains the same.
This is evident in the successful acquisition of 53.59% Sabeco shares worth nearly US$4.8 billion on last December by Vietnam Beverage, a unit of Thai Beverage.
In a related development, Habeco also plans to start selling its shares to the public in the first quarter of 2018, while Danish brewer Carlsberg, currently Habeco’s strategic shareholder, is considering to acquire a majority holding in Habeco.
