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Mr Vivek Chhabra, Regional Director, South Asia, Asia Pacific Breweries (file photo).

K. Giriprakash

Bangalore, Aug. 8 Asia Pacific Breweries (APB), which makes Tiger and Heineken beer, has shelved its plans to start breweries in north India while it is planning to revive its brewery in Goa.

APB has also recently taken full control of its brewery in Aurangabad. But no plans have been firmed up for the launch of Heineken in the Indian market even as talks between the UB Group and Heineken continues over their future ties in India.

Heineken recently took over Scottish & Newcastle’s stake in United Breweries. Heineken owns 42 per cent stake in the Indian operations of APB.

APB regional director for South Asia and group business development director for the company, Mr Vivek Chhabra, told Business Line that its move to buy breweries in North India has been shelved for the time being.

It will feed markets in the north through its breweries in Aurangabad and Hyderabad till it is able to expand its marketing and sales of its products there. “We realised that we had very less sales experience in the north and hence starting breweries there would have made little sense,” he said. Plans to revive its brewery in Goa — which used to produce the local beer called ‘Arlem’ — will, however, take time, Mr Chhabra said.

APB had earlier said that it was planning to set up a brewery either in Haryana, Punjab or Rajasthan. Mr Chhabra said that with the Hyderabad and the Aurangabad breweries being expanded, it was now possible to feed other markets.

APB last week bought the remaining 24 per cent stake in their Aurangabad brewery from their partners, the Chowgules, for around Rs 16 crore. APB plans to expand the capacity of the brewery by 1 lakh cases to about 3 lakh cases per month by March next year.

There are, however, no plans to increase its stake in Hyderabad, which is currently at 67 per cent, though the capacity of the brewery will be increased by 1 lakh cases per month to 3 lakh cases per month.

Mr Chabbra said the beer market itself is expected to grow between 10 per cent and 12 per cent during the next 12 months. He said in Maharashtra, APB had a 10 per cent share of the strong beer market where as in Delhi it was about 7 per cent of the strong beer market. In Tamil Nadu, its market share was about 5 per cent of the premium beer market.

APB produces Tiger, Baron’s Strong Brew and Canon 10000 beers in India. APB’s revenues in India have grown 77 per cent for the quarter ended June 2008, whereas the market has grown between 7 per cent and 8 per cent.

More Stories on : Outlook | Breweries

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