No. 2 brewery ups its share

Tuesday, 25 February 2014 00:10 
NOTIMEX
thenews.com.mx


The Mexican beer industry may have suffered a 1.5 percent fall in 2013, but the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewery still considers the year a good one after improving its market share by 0.4 percent, according to Marc Busain, the company’s managing director.

Conceding that 2013 was “a difficult year” because of the overall economic situation, he was quick to point out at a press conference Monday that Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma has increased revenue by more than 6 percent since 2010, with sales volume growing by 2 percent.

Busain said that the company hopes to continue its upward trend and eventually take over the Mexican market leadership from Grupo Modelo.

One of the ways the brewery hopes to do that, said Busain, is through innovation, including the launching of new brands in 2014. It also plans to strengthen existing brands in parts of the country where their presence is minimal.

An example would be the growth of the Tecate beer brand in the southeast region of the country. Tecate accounts for 50 percent of Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s revenues.

Busain said that the brewery’s six plants — in the cities of Monterrey, Nuevo León; Tecate, Baja California; Navojoa, Sonora; Toluca, State of Mexico and Orizaba, Veracruz — are operating at more than 80 percent capacity. Durng the summer months, however, they can be “a little bit saturated,” in Busain’s words, which is one reason the company is investing €300 million to build a new plant in Chihuahua, the capital city of the border state of the same name.

Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma is a subsidiary of the Belgian beer maker Heineken International, and accounts for about 11 percent of the parent company’s worldwide sales, according to Busain.

Three of its brands — Heineken, Dos Equis and Coors Light — are experiencing double-digit growth, he said, and another, Sol, is just now entering the world market.

Other Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brands include Bohemia, Superior, Carta Blanca, Indio, and Costa, as well as Noche Buena during the winter holiday season.