U Beer provides Singha with a number of obvious marketing options in the run-up to Valentine's.
Thai brewer Singha has launched a new lager in Thailand.
U Beer is the company’s latest addition to the domestic beer market, adding to its existing Singha and Leo brands of beer.
It is inspired by European lager, offers a smooth taste, and is brewed for a ‘new generation’ of consumers with what the Bangkok-based company described as a ‘hip, modern label design’.
The bottle is decorated with a bold black and yellow neck label, and a body label that features a large emblem of the letter U in the same signature colours.
The 5% ABV lager will be available at select retail stores around the country in two bottle sizes: 620ml and 320ml.
According to research from Euromonitor, Thailand’s beer market continued to decline in volume terms in 2015, despite growth in the country’s GDP of 2.8% during the same period.
But the decline is generally slowing – and improving economic conditions may boost consumer confidence, in turn raising people’s willingness to purchase beer.
Singha, which is also known as Boon Rawd Brewery, saw its volume share fall slightly to 59%, though it retained its leadership of the category. The decline was due to fiercer competition within beer, including the rising popularity of imported premium lager, which created opportunities for other players, Euromonitor said.
On the other hand, the established presence of its Singha and Leo brands managed to sustain the interest of the majority of consumers, while the player also distributed imported lager brands that helped to mitigate its overall loss of volume share.
Prospects in neighbouring Vietnam are seen as even brighter, with beer consumption expected to increase from a volume of almost 3.9 billion litres in 2015 to just over 4 billion litres last year.
Heineken agreed to buy a brewery in Vietnam from Carlsberg in August to capitalise on the emergence of the market.
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