China Brewers:Channel check feedback,mix upgrade continues for CR Beer

The distributor indicated that sales grew by high single digits inthe first nine months, driven mainly by almost doubled volume of themainstream product ("Snow Brave World", retail price at Rmb6/bottle inrestaurants). Mainstream product has accounted for 40% of total CRBsales this year, vs. 20% for last year. Other products are mainly low-endproducts (retail price at Rmb4/bottle).

    The distributor thinks the strong sales growth of the mainstreamproduct was helped by three factors. First, CRB offers more marketingsupport for mid-range products. It offers a higher channel margin fordistributors and provides gift sales/piling up of expenses to restaurants.

    Second, there is less competition in this price range; Tsingtao has SKUspriced at Rmb6/bottle but it offers less market support to channels andretail outlets. Third, consumers are continuing to trade up.

    Low-end products: competition remained intensive. For low-endproducts, the distributor thinks it is hard to raise prices even when theconsolidation level is high, given there are still some strong local playerssuch as "Jiangsu Dafuhao", which is aggressive in pricing. The distributorimplied sales of low-end beer (retail price at Rmb4/bottle) had declinedby c.10% YTD.

    High-end products: dominated by Budweiser in Suzhou. Thedistributor's sales of the high-end "Snow Draft" (retail price at Rmb10/bottle) are quite limited and sales have seen little growth, givenits branding is weaker than that of other high-end brands, such asBudweiser. They indicated that Budweiser had grown by 20-30% inSuzhou this year.