The very hot weather and football drove the beer market up this summer, which is showing the first signs of improvement after two years of decline and one year of stagnation.
The beer sales increased by 11.2% in June-August, according to ZF calculations, which restored optimism among industry members after a hesitating start and decline.
May was the best month for the industry, when growth reached almost 17% as a result of the hot weather and the Europa League football final held in Bucharest. The growth remained double-digit in June, too (14.6%).
The beer market has not seen such significant increase since the summer of 2008, the last year of boom for the industry. Afterwards growth has been either single-digit or the industry posted decline.
The largest competitors in the local beer business are Ursus, Heineken, Bergenbier, URBB (United Romanian Breweries Bereprod) and Romaqua (Albacher and Dorfer).
The latest official data available came from the “Brewers of Romania” Association, which announced that beer consumption had increased 4% in the first half. It also noted that Romanian consumers’ purchasing power was still affected by the crisis and therefore the trend until the end of the year was hard to guess.
On the other hand, a forecast of market researcher Canadean last year showed a downward trend of beer sales in Romania until 2016.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)