SYDNEY - Coca-Cola Amatil's (CCA) foray into the premium beer market is "well ahead on last year", the beverage maker's managing director, Terry Davis, said.
CCA's premium beer business Pacific Beverages, a joint venture with the world's second-largest brewer, SABMiller, was launched last year in an attempt tograb a slice of the A$1 billion-a-year ($1.1 billion) Australian beer market.
SABMiller brews international beers such as Miller, Peroni Nastro Azzuro and Pilsner Urquell, and CCA sells them into Australia.
CCA plans to produce local versions of the beers, with the company hoping to become the third-largest brewer in Australia by 2012, behind Foster's and Lion Nathan.
At the company's annual general meeting yesterday, Davis said Pacific Beverages had built up significant momentum since it was launched last August.
"Pacific Beverages ... has made a good start, with premium beer sales showing encouraging momentum during the Easter period, with results well ahead of last year," Davis said.
Davis confirmed expectations of high single-digit earnings growth this year, due to a strong start to 2007 by Pacific Beverages and CCA's Australian, New Zealand and Indonesian non-alcoholic drinks businesses.
Davis said CCA was showing signs of recovery after a tough 2006, when the company suffered an 11.9 per cent fall in net profit because of the higher cost of sugar, aluminium, and PET resin for its plastic bottles.
Of the proposed sale of the Korean venture, Davis said CCA had received "sufficient interest from local and international players for CCA to now consider the sale of the South Korean business".
