Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd. of Japan is bullish about San Miguel Brewery’s plan to venture into soft drink business. Kirin has a 49-percent stake in SMB while conglomerate San Miguel Corp. holds the remaining 51 percent.
Kirin senior director Keisuke Nishimura said it makes sense for SMB to venture into soft drink manufacturing to complement the existing beer business.
He said while the domestic beer market continued to grow, there was a little room for SMB to further increase its market share, as it already controlled more than 95 percent of the domestic beer market.
“Going to soft drink business makes sense to us because we can use the same platform with the beer business. The potential is very big,” he said.
Nishimura said while there were already big players in the soft drink industry, SMB had a big chance to succeed in this market.
SMB’s board approved last month the adoption of a multi-beverage strategy to capitalize on the opportunities in the rapidly growing non-alcoholic beverage industry.
SMB said the non-alcoholic beverage category had a larger share of the whole beverage market and was growing at a faster pace than the beer category.