Suntory to tie up with SKorea's OB: report

5 December 2010 - 07H45

Bottles of Orangina pass along a production line Meyzieu, France. Japanese beverage giant Suntory Holdings, which owns the iconic French brand, is to join forces with Oriental Brewery of South Korea in a bid to expand overseas as Japan's market continues to contract, a report said Sunday.

AFP - Japanese beverage giant Suntory Holdings is to join forces with Oriental Brewery of South Korea in a bid to expand overseas as Japan's market continues to contract, a report said Sunday.

In its first tie-up with a major foreign brewer, Suntory will export its high-end "The Premium Malt's" for restaurants in some 30 cities in South Korea, the Nikkei business daily said.

The two firms plan to introduce the beer to the South Korean consumer market by next spring, with privately owned Suntory eyeing an eventual sales target of four billion yen (48 million dollars).

The report came as major Japanese beverage makers have aggressively sought to expand abroad to offset the shrinking Japanese market, with young people increasingly shunning alcohol.

The Japanese beer market has contracted by 15 percent in the past decade, while the South Korean market has grown 20 percent, the Nikkei said.

Suntory last year acquired Europe's privately held Orangina Schweppes Group for about 3.3 billion dollars, in what was the year's largest purchase by a Japanese company of a foreign firm.