China’s beer sales spike during World Cup

Beer orders placed on Chinese food delivery apps and the country’s leading e-commerce websites have surged during this year’s World Cup.

Orders placed on Meituan, a popular Chinese food delivery app, jumped by 40% in the 15 minutes before the start of the first World Cup match between Russia and Saudi Arabia, wrote SCMP. Other takeout food including crayfish and tonic soups had also seen sharp increases.

The app is promising 24-hour food delivery during World Cup that runs from 14 June to 15 July. Other similar apps including Alibaba’s Ele.me and Hema supermarkets are also rolling out similar promotions. Ele.me received beer orders from 150,000 users on the first night of the World Cup, up 167% compared with the same period last year.

On the group’s retail platform Tmall, its daily beer sales reached 1.3 million bottles on 17 May ahead of the game, wrote China Daily. The majority of the buyers were restaurants and pubs.

In fact, beer sales started to pick up weeks ahead of the football tournament and share prices for major local beer brands such as Yanjing Beer, Chongqing Beer, Lanzhou Huanghe and Pearl River Beer also rose in anticipation of strong demand.

Although China’s national team did not qualify for the tournament, more than 100,000 Chinese football fans have flown to Russia for this year’s World Cup to cheer for their favourite football teams.

The presence of the Chinese is also felt with conspicuous ads sponsored by Chinese companies including property developer Wanda and smartphone developer Oppo to name a few.