High dollar hurts wine sales growth
If you listen to wine companies explain why they aren’t doing well, they are never short of excuses. The weather, the supermarkets, the consumers. The latest excuse seems to be „international currency movements“. Heavens know how the wine industry could ever dream of going global.
The latest Rabobank Wine Quarterly report says global wine exports continue along a general growth trend with the major exceptions being Australia and South Africa as the strength of their currencies dampened demand on export markets.
„Conversely, the continued weakness of the euro provides impetus to exports from France, Italy and Spain, whose exports are growing faster than their New World competitors,’’ Rabobank said.
„The strength of domestic currencies will continue to determine global price competitiveness and regional profitability, a dynamic that sees the Australian wine industry struggling with oversupply despite successive below-average harvests and tightening supplies in the rest of the world.“
The report released in early October 2011 shows the value of exports from most major wine producers is up between 10 percent and 34 percent in the first six months of this year, while the value of Australian sales is down by 10 percent.
France exported 14.3 percent more wine by value for the six months, Spain was up 19.6 percent, Italy 14 percent, the U.S. 34 percent and Argentina up 12 percent.
By contrast, Australian wine export volumes fell by 11.8 percent to about 392 million litres in the calendar year to date, while the value of exports fell 10 percent.
Rabobank said the wine-grape harvest under way in the Northern Hemisphere was expected to throw greater clarity on the world wine story.
Rabobank’s forecasts include a growing shortage of grapes and wine in the U.S. with its 2011 crop down by at least 10 percent, as well as declining productions in Italy and Spain, easily outweighing the higher production expected in France and Germany.
