The alcoholic beverages industry encompasses beer, wine, spirits, and other alcoholic beverages. Many companies operating in the industry have brands spanning multiple subsectors, but the biggest alcoholic beverage company, AB Inbev focuses only on beer.
Recently, with the advent of legal recreational cannabis markets in the United States and Canada, many alcoholic beverage companies have begun investing in cannabis businesses as a new revenue stream and as a hedge against revenue loss to a competing industry. Another emerging trend in the industry follows the general trend towards health and wellness in the overall food and beverage industry. As more and more people are trying to limit their intake of alcohol, more companies across the spectrum of the industry have begun offering low and no-alcoholic options, to great success. The boom in hard seltzer fits nicely into this trend as they generally have the calories of a lite beer.
The alcoholic beverages market is forecast to grow by nearly 84 percent by 2025 to over 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars in value from an initial value of 1..2 trillion dollars in 2012.
Much of the alcoholic beverages market revenue comes from the two largest country markets in the world, the United States and China. In terms of categories, beer is the dominant beverage in the industry.
Beer accounted for 42.5 percent of all alcoholic beverage sales in the United States in 2021, with spirits in second place at 41.3 percent and wine in last with 16.1 percent of sales.
Beer has been steadily losing market share since 2000 when it accounted for over half of all sales. Spirits have been the main benefactor of this slump, picking up over ten points of market share since that time. Meanwhile, wine has stayed relatively unchanged in its position.
Low and non-alcoholic ready to drink alcoholic beverages are forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 38 percent between 2018 and 2022 in the United States. Wine is second, with a CAGR of nearly 18 percent over that time period.
The predicted growth of these beverages can be tied to the greater trend in food and beverage of better-for-you products which promote a healthier lifestyle. Likewise, more consumers are trying to drink no or less alcohol every year.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Belgian brewing company responsible for such brands as Budweiser, Corona, and Beck's is not only the largest alcoholic beverages company in the world but also the largest beverage company altogether with sales of over 46 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Heineken came second with roughly half the sales of AB InBev in that year.
It should come as no surprise that brewers top the list, as beer is the most commonly consumed alcoholic beverage worldwide.
The alcoholic beverages industry is comprised of companies that manufacture and sell beverages containing alcohol from various sources. The main segments of the industry are beer, wine, and spirits. Among these exist various subsegments differentiated by their production materials and techniques, and the flavors and alcohol content they produce. All alcoholic beverages share the commonality of fermenting some source of sugar at some stage in their production in order to produce alcohol.
Beer is the most commonly consumed alcoholic beverage on the planet and for this reason, the world's largest beer brewers are also the largest alcoholic drink manufacturers on the planet, with Belgian AB InBev leading the pack. Spirits, which are produced by distilling after fermentation are the next largest market, are led by the British company Diageo. Finally, wine, made from fermented grapes is the smallest major alcohol segment. The largest producer is E&J Gallo Winery.
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