Carlsberg

Carlsberg owns Russian business through the company Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH). Carlsberg acquired their initial 50% share in BBH in 2001 through their merger with the Norwegian FMCG group Orkla, with whom they split in 2004 gaining full control of Okra’s holdings in the brewing industry (Kronenberg 2007). As previously mentioned Carlsberg gained full ownership of BBH through the joint acquisition of Scottish & Newcastle in 2008 as they owned the remaining 50%.

The BBH JV included Baltika Breweries, a Russian brewer established in 1990 and privatized in a joint shareholder company in 1992 (Baltika 2010). Developing rapidly, Baltika soon became the leading company on the Russian market, and was since its founding envisioned as specializing mainly in high quality products and beer comparable to other top European brands. In 2006 the brewery merged with three other breweries; Vena, Pikra and Yarpivo, who were themselves part of the BBH, before finally in April 2008 becoming fully owned by Carlsberg. The beers brewed by Baltika is by Carlsberg described as the only national beer brand in Russia, and the large market share enjoyed by the company certainly seems to underline this statement (Carlsberg annual report 2009). Baltika is today the biggest European beer brand measured by sales volume as well as one of biggest Russian FMCG manufacturer (Baltika 2010).

Through Baltika, Carlsberg includes beers from all four beer segments in its production and marketing, the four being discount, mainstream, premium and super premium. This has led to the company being able to profit by the growth of the entire market, as opposed to only some of the segments as its competitors have. Mainly it is the premium segment that is growing rapidly, and it is also in this segment that Carlsberg chooses to focus most of their efforts in order to develop its market share through both volume and value growth. One of the tools Carlsberg utilizes in their efforts to increase their market...