Beck's beer is back.
After a four-year absence from the Taiwan market, the German beer is staging a comeback and hopes to become one of the top three imported brands with the next year.
According to Vincent Wang (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"I have every confidence in the brand's ability to [rebuild] its popularity in this country," Wang said yesterday.
The most-recognized German beer internationally, Beck's has a presence in more than 120 countries. The brand came to Taiwan in the early 1990s.
In 1995, Beck's sold four million 12-packs -- or 96 million 330ml cans -- making it the No. 2 imported brand in the country, Wang said.
But after switching local agents twice in 1998, sales of the beer began to slide, eventually forcing Beck's from the market.
"We changed our local dealers, but it appeared that we made the wrong picks to sell our beer," Wang said, blaming the pull-out on the local dealers' lack of experience in selling alcoholic beverages.
Wang said that with Tait -- a consumer goods distributor that markets groceries, personal care products, beverages and wines -- Beck's should manage to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 12-packs this year.
The return of Beck's into the nation's beer market is one of the first by Interbrew of Belgium, which announced the acquisition of Beck & Co of Germany in February, Wang said.
Ed Shyurng (
Beck's should also provide some competition for the No. 1 brew in the land -- Taiwan Beer -- produced by the state-controlled Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (公賣局).
"The beer market is definitely going to heat up this year after Taiwan's accession into the World Trade Organization," said Wei Yao-hsuan (
Taiwan Beer is nearly 20 percent cheaper than other brands. Because it's brewed domestically, Taiwan Beer is fresher than imported brands, which can easily become stale during delivery.
But Shyurng said Taiwan Beer will not be king forever.
"What we had in the past was unfair competition by Taiwan Tobacco. Now the situation has changed and the consumer will know what a good beer stands for," he said.
With more than a dozen foreign beer brands on store shelves, Shyurng expects the domestic market to consolidate during the next three years.
"The market is not saturated and will not be saturated," Shyurng said. "But there are really too many brands here and some weaker brands must go."
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
Nintendo Co hopes to match the runaway success of the Switch when its leveled-up new console hits shelves on Thursday, with strong early sales expected despite the gadget’s high price. Featuring a bigger screen and more processing power, the Switch 2 is an upgrade to its predecessor, which has sold 152 million units since launching in 2017 — making it the third-best-selling video game console of all time. However, despite buzz among fans and robust demand for pre-orders, headwinds for Nintendo include uncertainty over US trade tariffs and whether enough people are willing to shell out. The Switch 2 “is priced relatively high”
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS