Imported Beer in the Hong Kong Market

The Hong Kong beer market provides a good case study of perceptions towards Western food products in one of these rapidly growing, newly affluent markets of East Asia. As living standards rise, people have begun drinking more imported beer. While the overall beer market has been flat, as in many other countries, imports have increased sharply, taking market share from local brewers. This discussion presents an overview of the Hong Kong beer market. It reviews import trends, which show that very few countries actually account for most of the dramatic growth in beer imports into Hong Kong. Then some results from two surveys are presented, which show that people choose beer mainly based on product quality or image criteria. Price has become relatively unimportant to many Hong Kong consumers. Finally, in the evaluation process, people clearly associate German beer with top quality. Information from interviews with supermarket managers in Hong Kong also confirms import statistics and survey data