The 40 largest brewing groups
The dissection of Scottish&Newcastle by the Heineken-Carlsberg “consortium” was a further milestone in the “beer monopoly” bringing the BBH-Group into the Carlsberg fold.
Another mega-merger went almost unnoticed in the hectic year 2008: SABMiller and Molson-Coors pooled their US activities under a newly formed Joint Venture by the name of MillerCoors with SABMiller holding 58 percent of the new entity and Molson-Coors the remaining 42 percent.
The disappearance of a number of breweries from the Top 40 List (Anheuser-Busch, BBH, S&N) made space in the league table for some newcomers: Saigon Beverage Corporation (SABECO), Vietnam, and United Brewery, India. It was also decided to list China Resources Breweries Ltd., China, separately this year, of which SABMiller holds a 49 percent share and which was included in SABMiller in the report for 2007, as SABMiller’s operational control seems limited.
The 40 largest brewing groups worldwide as of 31.12.2008
| Brewery and rank | Country | Production volume 2008 (in million hl) | Percentage of world beer production |
| 1 AB InBev 1) | Belgium | 388.1 | 21.4 % |
| 2 SABMiller 2) | United Kingdom | 174.4 | 9.6 % |
| 3 Heineken | Netherlands | 161.5 | 8.9 % |
| 4 Carlsberg | Denmark | 109.3 | 6.0 % |
| 5 China Resource Brewery Ltd. | China | 73.0 | 4.0 % |
| 6 Tsingtao Brewery Group | China | 54.3 | 3.0 % |
| 7 Grupo Modelo | Mexico | 51.5 | 2.8 % |
| 8 Molson-Coors | USA/Canada | 51.1 | 2.8 % |
| 9 Yanjing | China | 42.2 | 2.3 % |
| 10 Femsa | Mexico | 41.1 | 2.3 % |
| 11 Asahi | Japan | 23.1 | 1.3 % |
| 12 Kirin | Japan | 22.7 | 1.3 % |
| 13 Efes Group | Turkey | 22.6 | 1.2 % |
| 14 BGI/Groupe Castel | France | 19.8 | 1.1 % |
| 15 Polar | Venezuela | 19.0 | 1.0 % |
| 16 Diageo (Guinness) 3) | Ireland | 19.0 | 1.0 % |
| 17 Gold Star | China | 18.5 | 1.0 % |
| 18 Chongging Beer | China | 17.7 | 1.0 % |
| 19 Grupo Schincariol | Brazil | 17.0 | 0.9 % |
| 20 San Miguel Corporation | Pilippines | 17.0 | 0.9 % |
| 21 Radeberger Gruppe | Germany | 13.5 | 0.7 % |
| 22 Grupo Mahou – San Miguel | Spain | 12.2 | 0.7 % |
| 23 Pearl River | China | 11.9 | 0.7 % |
| 24 Obolon | Ukraine | 11.3 | 0.6 % |
| 25 Hite | South Korea | 11.1 | 0.6 % |
| 26 Singha Corporation | Thailand | 11.0 | 0.6 % |
| 27 Foster’s Group | Australia | 9.0 | 0.5 % |
| 28 Petropolis | Brazil | 9.0 | 0.5 % |
| 29 CCU | Chile | 8.9 | 0.5 % |
| 30 Lion Nathan 4) | Australia/New Zealand | 8.5 | 0.5 % |
| 31 Oettinger | Germany | 8.5 | 0.5 % |
| 32 Beer Thai (Chang) | Thailand | 8.3 | 0.5 % |
| 33 Saigon Beverage Corp. (SABECO) | Vietnam | 8.1 | 0.4 % |
| 34 Damm | Spain | 7.7 | 0.4 % |
| 35 Suntory | Japan | 7.6 | 0.4 % |
| 36 Bitburger Braugruppe | Germany | 7.4 | 0.4 % |
| 37 Sapporo | Japan | 7.2 | 0.4 % |
| 38 United Brewery | India | 6.4 | 0.4 % |
| 39 Shenzhen Kingway | China | 6.3 | 0.3 % |
| 40 Shanghai Suntory | China | 6.2 | 0.3 % |
| Total | 1,523.0 | 83.9 % | |
| World beer production 2008 | 1,815.6 | 100.0 % |
1) Without Modelo
2) Without China Resource Brewery Ltd.
3) Last year’s figure, no new data available
4) In May 2009 majority takeover by Kirin
Source: Barth Report 2008; G. Hansmaennel
