What's Trendy Now? The Japanese Beer Market
Umm! Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi ...

The Japanese beer market has always been very active. Although similar to other beer industries, where the market is dominated by two large players - Kirin and Asahi (like Molson and Labatt here in Canada), the Japanese beer business is different in that all brewers in Japan, including the smaller Sapporo and Suntory launch several new brands per year. Additionally, they also market seasonal brews such as "winter lager" which are introduced annually but only for a short period of time. This makes for tremendous advertising and lots of choices for consumers.

Within this backdrop, about ten years ago, "dry" beers were introduced in Japan. Asahi at the time was trailing far behind industry leader Kirin which held a commanding 60% market share. This new brand called Asahi Superdry caught on like wildfire with the younger generation, including young salarymen. Based almost solely on the success of this new brand, Kirin today stands at only 40% market share and Asahi at 35%. In an almost parallel faux pas to Coca Cola's "New Coke" fiasco, Kirin changed the taste of their flagship lager to make it more like Asahi Superdry. Like with New Coke, the introduction of Kirin Superdry had the reverse effect and turned away their staunch lager supporters. Recently Kirin has "revitalized" their lager and returned it to its original formulation.

Around late 1994, due to endaka (strong value of yen) the rage was the importation of cheap imports of beer from around the world. These were traditionally selling at almost half the price of the domestic brands. Large retailers would do the imports directly. However the cheap price often translated into poor quality and after peaking at around 5% in sales, these cheaper imported brands lost favour with consumers who went back to wanting to pay more for a quality product. Imports now barely account for 1% of sales in Japan. During this "import age", ice beers from abroad made their appearance but the ice age has since come and gone.

One of the reasons why imports were so inexpensive, in addition to the endaka, was that many foreign beers had less than the required malt content (60%) to categorize them truly as beer as defined by Japanese liquor laws. Lower malt beers are also taxed at a lower rate and so can be sold for less. Suntory and Sapporo were the first to capitalize on this and produce the so-called "sparkling alcoholic drink" or happoushuu in Japanese. This market segment has grown to almost double-digit levels now, and finally even Kirin has launched their own low malt brew. The new trend is popular with health conscious drinkers. As well, the lighter taste is more appealing to female drinkers. Finally, the retail price is lower (and even at 25% malt content happoushuu still tastes like beer).

So change is always taking place in the beer industry in Japan. This year, 1998, could be the momentous year when Asahi will usurp Kirin as Japan's brewer with the largest market share. Everyone is waiting and watching. There's never a dull moment in the Japanese brewing industry.

Marc Couturier

Marc Couturier has been a CJST member since 1996. He works for Mitsubishi Canada Limited and spent 2 years at the head office of Mitsubishi Corporation in Tokyo as part of the beer team.

Japan on the Web

I recently did an Internet search on "Weird Japan" and came up with some pretty funny websites:

www.osk.threewebnet.or.jp/~richsch1/what.html#favourites
A compilation of funny "Japanglish" spotted on shopping bags and T-shirts around Japan.

www.php.co.jp/japaninface/valleygirls/teenslang.html
Learn the language of a Japanese valley girl (and how to get your socks to be just the perfect length!)

AP

Sayonara and Konnichiwa

The Director of the Japan Foundation, Mr. Masamichi Sugihara, will be returning to Japan. We wish him luck in his new posting and thank him for his tremendous support over the last few years. We would also like to welcome his successor, Mr. Naoji Matsubara. Prior to coming to Toronto, Mr. Matsubara was posted in Tokyo and Rome. The CJST looks forward to furthered cooperation between the two organizations.

AP

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