The top 10 travel retail brands

The International Wine & Spirits Research (IWSR) has released its 2013 Travel Retail Summary Report, which is an overview of duty free trends from 2007 to 2012.

The report found that the top 100 brands accounted for 85.7% of total travel retail sales in 2012, up from 83.8% in 2008. In addition the top 10 brands alone accounted for nearly 40% of sales in 2012.

In terms of the brands within the top 100 Diageo had the largest representation on the list with 18 brands, followed by Pernod Ricard (17), Beam (10), Bacardi (six), William Grant & Sons (five), Campari (five) and Brown-Forman (three).

Scotch was the largest category, accounting for 26 brands, liqueurs followed with 13 brands, and vodka with 12.

But which brands were the biggest sellers in 2012? Click through the following pages to find out.

10 – Courvoisier

This Beam-owned brand saw huge growth between 2011 and 2012 according to the IWSR report. It rose by over 20% from 322,200 cases to 389,400, this is the largest percentage growth of any of the brands in the top 10 best sellers in travel retail. Overall the 389,400 cases sold in 2012 accounted for 1.8% of the share of volume in the sector.

9 – Hennessy

With 2.2% share of travel retail volume LVMH’s Hennessy brand is the ninth biggest seller in travel retail. Although it enjoyed good growth in 2012, it was much smaller than that seen by Courvoisier.

In total Hennessy sold 476,200 cases in 2012, which is a 3.4% increase on the 460,400 cases the brand sold in 2011.

8 – Ballantine’s

This is the first of Pernod Ricard’s three brands to feature in this top 10 and Ballantine’s took 2.8% share of the market in 2012. In terms of volume Ballantine’s grew by 2.8% in the last year from 579,500 in 2011 to 596,000 in 2012.

Although outside of travel retail Ballatine’s sales fell in 2012 it is still the world’s second most popular Scotch whisky brand.

7 – Smirnoff

Although it is the world’s biggest spirit brand, that success is not mirrored in travel retail, where the Diageo-owned brand has 3% of the market share. Worldwide the brand sold 26.3 million cases in 2012 and travel retail accounted for 632,500 cases. This is a significant improvement on its 2011 travel retail sales when Smirnoff sold 584,600 cases, 2012 is 8.2% up on the previous year.

6 – Bacardi

Another brand where its worldwide success is not quite matched in the travel retail sector. In 2012 Bacardi sold 19.8m cases, making it the world’s second most popular spirits brand. In travel retail Bacardi sold 638,000 cases, making it the sixth most popular brand with 3% market share. The brand did enjoy healthy travel retail growth in 2012, up from 601,300 cases an increase of 6.1%.

5 – Baileys

This is the second-biggest seller of Diageo’s three brands in the top 10 with 711,600 cases, up by 1.3% from 702,200 in 2011.

Overall this means that Baileys, which sold 6.5m cases worldwide in 2012, has 3.3% of the travel retail market share.

4 – Jack Daniel’s

Fourth-ranked Jack Daniel’s was one of the biggest gainers in the top 10, posting an impressive 11.8% increase in 2012 to reach 733,270 cases.

The brand has benefitted from the roll-out and consumer acceptance of its Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey expression, as well as higher visibility due to the introduction of Jack Daniel’s concept outlets in a number of international airports. The brand accounts for 3.4% of the travel retail market.

3 – Chivas Regal

Two of the top three travel retail brands are owned by Pernod Ricard, and this position for Chivas Regal is impressive considering it does not rank in the top 10 biggest-selling spirit brands globally. In 2012 the brand shipped 931,200 cases in duty free, up by 4.6% on the 890,500 it sold in 2011. This gives Chivas Regal 4.4% of the market share, not fair the second-placed brand which actually saw its market share fall in 2012.

2 – Absolut

Pernod Ricard’s top selling travel retail brand is the fourth best selling spirit brand worldwide, but it did not enjoy a particularly good 2012 in this sector. Its travel retail sales fell by 4% from 1,110,900 cases in 2011 to 1,066,500 in 2012. This meant that its share of the travel retail market fell to 5%, less than half that of the leading brand. Globally it was a stronger year for Absolut as it grew by 3.6% to 11.4m cases.

1 – Johnnie Walker

The world’s biggest selling whisky is also the best seller in the travel retail sector, with a dominant 10.9% of the market share. In 2011 Johnnie Walker became the first brand to surpass the two million cases mark in the sector and it managed to improve on that in 2012.

Diageo managed to push the brand to 15.3% growth in 2012, taking it to 2,336,400 cases sold, This is equivalent to over 310,000 cases. In 2012 the brand sold 19.7m cases making it the most popular whisky brand in the world and the third most popular spirit brand overall.