Baltika Breweries to Start Production of Asahi Super Dry

The leading Russian brewing company Baltika Breweries will produce the beer Asahi Super Dry under license. The respective license agreement was recently signed by Baltika Breweries OJSC and Asahi Breweries Ltd.
The PR service of Baltika Breweries reports, according to the terms of a recently signed license agreement, Asahi Breweries Ltd. gives Baltika Breweries the right to its trademarks, know-how and technologies and also the exclusive right to produce, sell and promote Asahi Super Dry beer in the European part of Russia to the West of the 60 degrees East longitude and in the CIS countries. The agreement will remain in force until 2012.
During the past three years, the licensed segment of the Russian beer market has grown at a pace well ahead of the market as a whole. At the end of Q4 2007, Baltika had a 27.62% market share in the licensed segment (according to data supplied by the agency Business Analytica), which allowed the Company to become the leader in the segment.
Company President Anton Artemiev commented as follows on the agreement over Asahi Super Dry: ‘The entry into the portfolio of a new super-premium licensed brand will enable us to strengthen our position in the actively growing top-price part of the licensed segment. Until now, we were represented in this part of the segment only by the Kronenbourg 1664 brand, which, notwithstanding its small sales volume, is one of the most profitable entries in the portfolio. In 2008, we consider, that Asahi Super Dry will grow at a quick pace, significantly outstripping the rate of growth of the licensed segment as a whole, basically thanks to growth in the large cities of the European part of Russia’.