They said consumers were not in the mood to dine out amidst the current political situation and the deceleration of economic growth.

"The government's unclear policy direction on how to curb spending on alcoholic drinks does not help the industry either," said Prin Malakul, corporate affairs director, Thai Asia Pacific Brewery, manufacturer and distributor of Heineken, Tiger and Cheer beers. "Besides, the industry growth is directly hit by the ban on alcohol advertisements," he added

The regulation had resulted in a slash in media advertising allocated by the beer players from more than Bt3 billion annually five years ago to about Bt1 billion last year.

Prin said the premium beer segment, including Heineken, Kloster, Asahi and San Miguel, estimated a drop of 8 per cent last year. While growth was witnessed in the standard beer segment, which are Singha, Tiger, Chang Light and Blue Ice, as well as the economy beer segment with major players including Chang, Leo, Archa and Cheers. The standard beer segment enjoyed a growth of 5 per cent in sales last year, and up to 19 per cent growth for economic beers.

"We have seen a slowdown in growth of premium beers in expanding its customer base, while economy beers have enjoyed a faster rate of expansion with a shift of customers from other alcoholic beverages," said Prin. "Economy beer is the only segment which has driven growth over the past three to four years," he added.

Prin said that there were many negative factors in the local economic environment and that had led to a psychological impact on consumers.

"We have clearly seen the impact since December last year when the volume of dine-out and out-of-home entertainment activities declined sharply," said Prin. "As a product which relates to the sentiment of consumers, we don't think the beer industry will witness any growth this year as people don't want to spend money on entertaining during this time of uncertainty," he said.

Chatchai Wiratyosin, marketing manager of Singha Corp, manufacturer of Singha and Leo beers, said that while the total economic beer segment experienced no growth last year, Leo beer enjoyed a sales increase of more than 20 per cent and gained share from its rivals, due to the success of its heavy below-the-line activities aimed at building the new brand positioning of lifestyle beer.

"We didn't think the beer industry would grow higher than 5 per cent last year. While we estimate the beer market in the first month of this year to see a significant decline of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent compared to the same month of last year," Chatchai said.

He said there were many uncontrolled factors, which would impact beer sales, including the government's ad-ban measure, the New Year's Eve blasts, and the current political situation.

"We cannot launch any long-term plan during this time of uncertainty. We just make a short-term strategy, which is revised every two months depending on the economic and political situation," Chatchai said.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation