Since the beginning of 2008 the brewing industry has been exhibiting a fluctuating growth dynamics though in other countries of Eastern Europe beer production was still growing slowly. The protracted production setback and transition from beer market stagnation to recession were caused by government regulation, economy crisis and poor weather.
The crisis shift of the trade balance
Market segmentation
The leaders’ positions
The first precondition of the stagnation was the new law i. e. the necessity to license beer trade starting from autumn 2007, which led to reduction of outlets dealing with brewers’ production. Qualitative and quantitative indicators of distribution went down sharply. Breweries started experiencing difficulties with shipments. In particular, according to the official statistics, by the beginning of 2007, the stock of finished products at storehouses of breweries amounted to …mln. dal and by January 2008‑to …mln. dal.
The negative results of government regulations were then coupled with the economy factor. The republic of Kazakhstan was obviously the first among other large CIS countries to experience economy crisis. Inflation growth against the background of production cutbacks led to purchasing power fall. The growth rates of money income of the population were slowing down since the end of 2007 and a considerable fall was registered in October 2008. The negative dynamics resulted both from employed population reduction and the salary level drop.
The decline of population’s well-being caused a reduction of nominal monetary expenses (in the fourth quarter of 2008‑by 10 %, over the year — by 2,9 %). The expense share for foodstuffs grew but in the first place their prices went up very quickly since the year beginning, having slowed down only by July. In the second place the consumption structure deteriorated — people started buying more bread, butter and fat, but the expenses on meat, vegetables and fruit and other not the first necessity products (including beer) have decreased
According to analysts’ estimations in 2009 the retail commodity turnover has gone down by several per cent. Moreover the most optimistic prognosis is another …% beer market decline, whereas the pessimistic one predicts a decline by more than …%.
At the beginning of the current year the beer sales were influenced not only by the crisis but other factors as well. As a result of tenge devaluation the … companies … considerably raised their sale prices for beer in the … quarter. It is obvious that this growth was caused not by market premialization. The … producers, including … practically did not raise their prices since last autumn. In the … quarter, the average sale prices for beer produced by … went substantially down. It could be connected with redistribution of sales by … — sale reduction of … local beer and growth of … segment.
The third reason mentioned by beverage producers is weather conditions — unusual winter and cold spring. Though the season typically starts in …, this year … days in … were rainy. … was also cold and glum which affected sales figures.
