Global Market Review Of Brandy And Cognac - Forecasts To 2014

Brandy is an extremely diverse category and incorporates a broad range of products ranging from ultra-premium Cognacs or Armagnacs, some priced at thousands of dollars per bottle, to local unbranded products selling for a dollar or less. Although Cognac sales are dwarfed by non-Cognac brandy in volume terms, the former is much more important from a value standpoint, and thus is the chief focus of this report.

In 2008, global Cognac sales fell for the first time in over 10 years, declining by 2.76% to 11.57m nine-litre cases. This follows a record year in 2007 when sales hit 11.9m cases.

Today the Cognac industry derives roughly one-third each of its sales from Western Europe, the US and Asia. Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC) CEO Jerome Durand says: “This leaves the Cognac industry very well-balanced to manage the risk, even though it is a global crisis.”

Camus la Grande Marque CEO Cyril Camus says: “Cognac is one of the few truly global products. It has a very high image and appeals to consumers everywhere... there is a very strong stable international base to Cognac consumption. That is a very reassuring factor in times like this.”

The Cognac industry has counter-attacked Scotch's rise in many markets with a number of initiatives aimed at providing a point of differentiation and product story, and is ultimately taking the initiative back from the single malt producers.

With over 27,000 words and 70 tables, this report provides the definitive review of the global Cognac and brandy markets, its brands and their strategies and distribution. Use this report to discover where the opportunities lie in the global marketplace.

Report overview:

Chapter 1 Scope of the market
This chapter sets the scene and provides a backdrop to the report's findings, analysing the major trends and issues affecting the global Cognac/brandy market. This chaper contains the report's forecast data with world brandy and Cognac/Armagnac sales, years 2004-2014 are provided and the main region performances are commented upon.

Extract: - Asia-Pacific was the best-performing market overall in 2008, up 3.9%. Six of the top growth markets are located there, and it is an important region for travel retail, the third fastest-growing market.

The impact of the downturn is analysed and where there are bright spots to comment on (such as Asia-Pacific), the report provides commentary and analysis, ensuring you know exactly where to focus short-term brand strategies on.

Other trends and issues discussed include:

* Whether we're seeing a consumer trade-down
* Industry structure
* Supply and demand
* Regulatory changes
* Marketing developments
* New product activity
* Mixability
* Cognac-based liqueurs
* Comparisons with single malt
* Gifting
* Extreme pricing
* The relationship between Cognac and non-Cognac brandy
* Subsidies

Chapter 2 The markets
This chapter analyses each key market worldwide and provides total sales volume for both brandy and Cognac by top brands and brand owners. Each market section contains commentary, analysis and exclusive interviews that provide a backdrop to the latest available data (actual 2003-2008 numbers). Travel retail is also quantified and discussed here.

Extract:

Cognac was the only relevant imported spirits category to show sales growth (as opposed to shipments) in China in 2008, driven mainly by the Martell brand. Cognac sales rose by 6.6% to 1.56m cases, according to The IWSR.

Cognac in China continues to perform strongly in its traditional Chinese entertainment channel, which Scotch finds hard to penetrate. The Cognac category is also more profitable than Scotch, with VSOP retailing at a 50% premium to 12-year-old Scotch brands. Moreover, the ultra-premium segment in Cognac (XO and over) is much larger than its Scotch equivalents, such as Royal Salute or Johnnie Walker Blue. All this makes the category more attractive than Scotch at importer, wholesaler and retailer levels.

Pernod Ricard CEO Pierre Pringuet confirms: “Martell in China is booming. Consumption for Cognac is very well-established in China, so it means that when people are less keen to buy foreign products, they will probably re-focus on their traditions and Cognac is much more in a position [to serve that] than Scotch whisky.”

Chapter 3 The major Cognac brands
The four major Cognac brands are profiled, with recent performance and brand positioning analysed for all (Hennessy, Remy Martin,Martell and Courvoisier). Quotes from interviews with the companies are provided throughout this chapter.

We'll leave the last encouraging words to Cyril Camus: “From a depletion (shipments from wholesalers to retailers) point of view, I believe we have touched the bottom now, and in some markets actually, we are starting to see a pick-up again in sales from what were very low volumes in the first quarter. The worst is past us.”