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Top six best-selling Tequila brands

The Tequila category is flourishing with big companies buying up smaller brands for billions of dollars. We present the brands at the top of the volume ladder.

SB reveals the world’s best-selling Tequila brands

According to market research provider Euromonitor International, the combined Tequila and mezcal category is the fastest growing in spirits, with volumes increasing 5.1% in 2017 to 33.6 million cases.

Last year was fruitful for the sector, with all million-case-plus Tequila brands in growth.

The category has attracted the attention of international drinks groups with a flurry of acquisitions, meaning Tequila is benefiting from unprecedented investment.

In June 2017, following its full purchase of Don Julio in 2015, Diageo agreed to acquire George Clooney’s Casamigos Tequila brand for US$1bn. However Bacardi trumped Diageo with its acquisition of Patrón Spirits International in a deal that valued the Tequila maker at US$5.1bn.

There were also several new entries to the million-case club, including Beam Suntory’s Hornitos brand and Diageo’s Don Julio Tequila.

Following our recently published Brand Champions 2018 report – an analysis of the spirits brands selling more than one-million cases annually – we run through the world’s best-selling Tequila brands on the market today.

Click through the following pages to discover the top six best-selling Tequila brands, listed in order of their nine-litre case sales.

Data is listed to one decimal place for ease of reading, but the percentage changes are based on the full data supplied to The Brand Champions 2018.

6. Hornitos

2017: 1.1m
2016: 0.9m
% change: 8.6%

A new face to the million-case club is Beam Suntory’s Hornitos brand which grew by 8.6% to sell 1.1m cases, up from 977,800 in 2016.

In 2017, Hornitos extended its line with the launch of a “category first” clear añejo Tequila and launched an online campaign, called A Shot Worth Taking, featuring “real­-life shot­-takers”. 

5. El Jimador

2017: 1.2m
2016: 1.2m
% change: 6.6%

El Jimador Tequila continued to witness strong sales last year, up by 6.6%.

More recently, in Brown-Forman’s fiscal 2018 results, El Jimador Tequila’s sales grew by 9% thanks to “strong takeaway trends” in the US and an increased marketing spend.

In November 2017, the brand celebrated Mexico’s Day of the Dead with the launch of a limited-edition bottle design for its Blanco and Reposado expressions.

4. Don Julio

2017: 1.3m
2016: 0.9m
% change: 44.4%

This year’s Tequila Brand Champion, Don Julio, witnessed astonishing growth of 44.4% – breaking the one-million-case mark for the first time.

Diageo completed its full acquisition of Don Julio in 2015, announcing a US$400m investment in the brand’s production facilities that same year.

The UK drinks giant broke ground on the expansion work at its Atotonilco production site in Jalisco, Mexico, in May last year. Don Julio now sits alongside George Clooney’s Casamigos Tequila, which Diageo acquired last year for US$1bn.

3. Patrón

2017: 2.6m
2016: 2.5m
% change: 5.1%

A brand that has continued its unstoppable rise is Patrón, which made headlines earlier this year with its acquisition by spirits giant Bacardi in a deal that valued the brand company at US$5.1bn

Edward Brown, Patrón Spirits’ president and CEO, said at the time of the acquisition: “With Bacardi and its global presence, there is vast potential to grow the Patrón brand outside the United States, which is particularly exciting.”

Patrón grew by a healthy 5.1% in 2017. No declines in five years means the brand is the third biggest-selling Tequila in the world.

2. Sauza

2017: 2.8m
2016: 2.8m

% change: 0.3%

The second Tequila from Beam Suntory to make our list is also the world’s second largest Tequila brand. Sauza Tequila, along with stablemate Hornitos, helped to boost Beam Suntory’s fiscal 2017 results.

A “contemporary” packaging refresh for the brand to communicate its premium positioning in late 2016 could have helped to increase volumes.

Earlier this year, Sauza unveiled three new canned ready-to-drink spiked sparkling waters.

1. Jose Cuervo

2017: 9.5m
2016: 8.9m
% change: 6.4%

Jose Cuervo’s data was available to publicly view for the first time last year after the brand launched its IPO. In 2017, the world’s largest Tequila brand sold 9.5m cases, an increase of 6.4%.

Owned by Mexican drinks group Becle, Jose Cuervo represented 36.6% of the company’s total net sales for 2017.

Last year, Jose Cuervo set out to challenge the “uniformity” of Tequila marketing with its campaign, Tomorrow is Overrated.

In the UK, the brand capitalised on National Margarita Day with the appointment of a ‘salt sommelier’.

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