The company's press service said that demand for its micro-brewed beers had increased significantly, in line with the increase in production. Production was boosted significantly after the company opened its first beer production plant on the outskirts of Moscow at the beginning of 2003 following a $20 million investment.
The new production plant meant that last year the company sold 907,820 decalitres of bottled beer, up from about 60,500 decalitres in 2002.
The company said that its beer sales had also been significantly boosted by sales made at its chain of restaurants. In 2003 it managed to sell 45,000 decalitres of beer at its microbrewery-restaurants. The company also managed to achieve a significant boost in restaurant turnover, which totalled $13.9 million, up 87 per cent on the year before.
Using the restaurants as a useful tool to market its beer and as well as significant outlet, the company is predicting further growth for the rest of this year. Currently its total share of the Russian beer market is 0.5 per cent, but with further promotional activities planned for this year, the company is anticipating increasing its share to around 3 per cent.
A further increase in sales is to be met by the construction of a second beer production plant, expected to be up and running by the third quarter of this year. The plant will have a production capacity of 20 million decalitres of beer a year.
Tinkoff currently has three microbrewery restaurants in the country, with two more expected to be opened by the end of this year.
With the company's products aimed towards the upper end of the market, it seems that Tinkoff is now hitting on a major growth area. In the past ten years there has been huge growth in the Russian brewing industry, although recently that growth has started to show signs of tailing off. Contrary to the overall trend, the premium end of the beer market seems to have more potential, as rising wealth in the upper echelons of Russian society feeds ever greater consumer spending.
The Tinkoff group includes the Interbir and Novye Tekhnologii companies, which are owned by Williams Technologies and registered in Great Britain's Virgin Islands, and in turn own the Tinkoff-Invest company.