ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV PLANS TO ENTER THE SPIRITS MARKET IN INDIA

Brewing giant, Anheuser-Busch InBev, wants to capitalize on the pull in India’s spirits sector and is planning new moves for its foray into the important Indian spirits market. Specifically, Budweiser brewer Budweiser has several proposals in the ready-to-drink, whiskey and gin segments that are ready to be launched.

Precisely, until now spirits in India were in poor health, and the category will be worth $47.48 billion by 2022. The Stella Artois brand owner is currently testing Mike’s Hard Seltzer in India, after launching the ZX Ventures-backed brand in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany last year. A blended brand of Scotch whisky and premium gin will follow later this year. In addition, premiumization has been a key factor in the value growth experienced by the category.

“For Indian consumers, the attitude towards premiumization is category agnostic and the openness to become repertoire users and not get married to a category has never been greater,” said Sharma. “We looked at consumers and saw that they really want to indulge, rather than abuse alcohol and we now have proposals, ready to drink, whiskey and gin, that are ready to launch,” he noted.

“A big part of our development cycle was on the production side because that’s the muscle we needed to build as we’re entering into a distilling space, which is relatively new to us. Being a company that was already selling premium and super premium beers, we were quite aware of the route to market channels, the classification of those channels and partners that will help us launch these brands in the right way,” he added.

Finally, India’s largest spirits company, United Spirits, increased the proportion of sales commanded by its ‘prestige and above’ (P&A) spirits from one-third to two-thirds between 2013 and 2021.