Beer sales in China slumped last month, according to SABMiller, whose CR Snow joint venture is the country’s biggest brewer, writes Louise Lucas.
The drop comes as some economists are fretting about China’s relative economic slowdown, and as Nokia, the handset maker, unveiled a 70 per cent year-on-year slide in sales in the country in the first quarter.
But SABMiller, the world’s second-biggest brewer by revenues, said its beer sales fell “well into double digits” in March, compared with March last year. But they out-performed the overall market and the fall was unrelated to the broader economy. It attributed the drop, which offset a strong February to drive quarterly organic sales down 0.7 per cent, to heavy rainfall. “Our fourth-quarter performance was almost entirely attributable to adverse weather in March and not indicative of any change in underlying economic conditions,” the brewer said.