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Diageo Wants Africa Beer, Spirits Sales To Grow From 13% To 20%

Diageo Wants Africa Beer, Spirits Sales To Grow From 13% To 20%

From Bloomberg.

Diageo Plc, the maker of Guinness beer and Johnnie Walker whisky, wants Africa to account for 20 percent of its sales after investing more than $1 billion in the continent over the last five years, CEO Ivan Menezes said.

The ambition to make the African operation “one of the pillars of the next decade” and boost takings from the current share of 13 percent will play out in growing nations such as Ethiopia, Menezes said at the opening of an expanded brewery in Africa’s second-most populous country. He declined to say when he expected to reach the goal.

“Africa is hugely important for Diageo and Ethiopia is going to be one of the cornerstone markets for us in the future,” the CEO said in a Feb. 25 interview with Bloomberg Africa Television at the Meta Abo brewery in Sebeta. “I see Africa growing faster than the Diageo average both in beer and in spirits, and the two go hand in hand.”

 The world’s largest spirits maker is leaning more on Africa as North America, its biggest and most profitable market, continues to struggle. The London-based distiller manufactures in 16 African countries and sells its brands in 40 on a continent that is expected to have a fifth of the world’s population by 2030. Diageo has invested $119 million in Meta Abo since buying the brewery from Ethiopia’s government for $225 million three years ago.

Read more at Bloomberg.