SAB hits back at Brandhouse on market share claim

SAB and Brandhouse have locked horns in the raging beer war.

On Monday, 19 April 2011, Brandhouse said it had grown its market share slightly more than 12% to just below 14% of the total local beer market.

These figures are based on Nielsen's calculations.

SAB replied, saying Nielsen measured less than 65% of the beer market and did not measure on-premise outlets, such as taverns, restaurants and bars, which were areas where SAB traditionally did well and had seen good growth in recent months.

"SAB tends to use its own data sources to verify market share, as it has not been able to resolve Nielsen's measurement issues," SAB said.

When various different data sources were considered and triangulated, SAB's market share had stabilised over the past nine months and had seen growth in recent months to the high 80s (percent), with particularly strong momentum being seen by Castle Lite, according to SAB.

"This has been largely at the expense of Amstel which, according to Heineken's annual report, has declined in volume," it said.

In addition, Amstel was still below the historical levels it enjoyed when it was part of the SAB stable.