Alcohol volumes to grow 20bn litres by 2019

The global alcoholic drinks market is set to grow by more than 20 billion litres over the next four years following “subdued” volume growth in 2014, new research has revealed.

Stalled growth in the emerging markets has hit volumes in the global alcoholic drinks sector

According to Euromonitor International’s new research into the market, total alcoholic drinks volumes grew just 0.8% to 252bn litres. However it predicts alcoholic drinks volumes will rise almost 10% to 276bn litres by 2019.

North America “shifted back into focus” with 1% total volume growth in 2014, up from 0.3% in 2013.

Meanwhile China experienced its lowest rate of growth – 1.2% – since the 1990s, impacted by the country’s on-going campaign of austerity which has lead to widespread destocking.

Following on from the crisis in the Ukraine, Russia’s “on-going macro and geopolitical stress” resulted in a 4% drop in volume.

“The seemingly unstoppable emerging market engine is beginning to stall,” said Spiros Malandrakis, senior alcoholic drinks analyst at Euromonitor. “Geographic diversification—or lack thereof—remains one of the defining factors determining top line success or failure.”

Malandrakis claims that categories such as Cognac which are “over-reliant” on a single market have suffered “disproportionately”.

Looking at spirits in particular, Euromonitor notes that the fast-growing Bourbon, Irish and Japanese whisky categories are “stealing the limelight” from Scotch, experiencing growth of 5%, 8% and 7% respectively last year.

It was revealed in November last year that spirits sales would contribute “slow but steady growth” to the global beverage market in 2015, but the emerging economies were predicted to slow down.