Chilean beer giant has its teeth in the rum market

A recently published ACNielsen market poll disclosed that, after less than ten months of marketing its Sierra Morena rum, Compania Cervecerias Unidas (CCU), Chile’s largest beer and beverage producer, has already taken control of 11.4 percent of the country’s rum market.

Compania Pisquera de Chile (CPCh), the subsidiary of CCU that controls all of CCU’s hard liquor products, claims it actually controls 18 percent of the market, not the 11.4 percent reported by the ACNielson poll. Company head Alvaro Fernandez told the Chilean daily El Mercurio that “CPCh’s statistics took into account sales in bars, discotheques, and convenient stores where as the ACNielsen poll is concentrated in supermarket sales.”

Morena is now the second largest selling rum on the Chilean market, second to Luksic group’s rum Mitjans, which controls 28.8 percent of the market. The third largest selling rum label in Chile is Venezuela’s Pampero rum, accounting for 7.2 percent of the market.

Rum sales in Chile have tripled in the past three years. In 2007, sales reached nearly US$80 million and now account for 18 percent of the total Chilean liquor market with 60 different brands.

CCU’s principal hard liquor is pisco, a Chilean brandy that accounts for 85 percent of CPCh’s sales. They are the biggest producers of pisco in Chile, owning 70 percent of the market with their Capmanario and Mistral labels.

However, pisco sales have declined over the years. In 2007, pisco’s market share dropped to 14.8 percent. Therefore, Fernandez emphasized the importance of rum as a major force in CPCh’s portfolio of hard liquors.

Publication: Santiago Times
Provider: Chip News
Date: April 17, 2008