Japanese brands top Korea’s beer sales

Japanese beer brands topped sales at South Korean hypermarket Lotte Mart, accounting for 22.2% of the total imported beer sold at the retail giant this year.

For the second year, Japanese beer was ranked first with a meagre increase over last year’s 21.5%, reported The Korean Herald citing data compiled by Lotte Mart.

German beer sales took up 16.6% this year, a continuous contraction from 2015’s 25.1% and 2016’s 19.9%.

Imported beer sales made up 51.1% of Lotte Mart’s beer sales this year, compared with 34.5% in 2015 and 40% in 2016, underscoring its growing popularity in the domestic market.

The country imported a record high of 95,858 tonnes of beers in the first half of 2016, up 34.5% year-on-year.

South Korea’s domestic beer did not enjoy a popular reputation abroad. In a searing article that appeared in The Economist in 2012 it was noted that, “brewing remains just about the only useful activity at which North Korea beats the South.”

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