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Heineken Ireland outperforms market

Beer giant Heineken managed to grow across its portfolio of beer brands in Ireland, while the overall market declined by 3%

Heineken Ireland achieved an impressively strong performance in 2008 with volume sales significantly outperforming the overall market, which saw a decline of 3%. Turnover remained static at €346 million, but the company carries 22.3% share of the total beer market across its range of brands.

Heineken carries 17% and 28.4% shares of the Irish beer and lager markets respectively. The brand grew on-trade share by 0.6 points, bringing its share of the total segment to 40% and broadening the gap between it and its nearest competitor.

Overall, Heineken remains the number one selling lager and number two beer brand across all channels. In the off-trade, it outperformed the market to grow share by 0.3 points to 15%, making it the number one lager in the off-trade sector.

According to Heineken Ireland, the growth was driven primarily by the strong performance of its bottled products, which in turn was enhanced by the introduction of new packaging units and formats in 2008. The brand also saw significant volume increases thanks to recently introduced innovative stock unit formats, such as the ‘David’ 20L keg, which showed increases in the order of 27% year on year.

Also in the Heineken Ireland portfolio, Coors Light achieved a 0.6 share point increase; attaining 31% growth in the on-trade as a result of continued successful roll-out of its draught product, 20% share of bottled on-trade, and the number one position in the Dublin market.

The company’s sales performance has benefited from the continuing and significant consumer preference for lager. Lager commands a 61% share of the Irish beer market, with stout share arresting previous rates of decline and holding at 33 %.
The total beer market in Ireland now stands at €3.18 billion and on-trade still dominates, accounting for 68% of the overall sector. In contrast, off-trade experienced a decline for the first time this decade, with volume sales dropping by 4.1%, year on year.


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