While brewers pinned their hopes on the World Football Championship, the event worked no miracles in terms of beer consumption, according to statistical data for June.
June brought a 3% decline in beer consumption, showing that in the lack of high temperatures football alone cannot spur beer consumption.
With the 8% decrease of 1H, the market reverted to the level of 9 years ago. This is not the steepest decline the beer industry saw during this period, as in the first six months of 2009 sales went down by 15%.
Brewers’ representatives said weather is the most important growth driver, followed by football competitions, but these are doubled by purchasing power and economic stability.
Sales of May and June account for almost one quarter in sales volumes registered during the summer. July and August added, the figures of this period set up the pace for the entire year.
Given that beer sales did not go up in any of this year’s months, the trend is little likely to be reversed from now on.
Apart from ZF’s estimates on the trend of beer consumption, there is no other public data available. The representatives of the Romanian Brewers’ Association say there’s analyzing 1H figures and data will be published in the second half of September. Brewers chose not to answer ZF’s questions about market signals related to consumption trends.
Beer consumption per capita stood at 81 liters last year, placing Romania sixth in Europe.
Against sales of 7.8 million hectoliters in the first half of the year, the beer market can be valued at almost EUR800 million.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)