In the last few months, there has been a worldwide outbreak of a deadly virus known as the Corona Virus or Covid-19. The virus was first detected in China, and since then it has spread to nearly 90 locations globally, including the US and Europe. So it is fair to say this presumably unstoppable virus is cause for great concern. I’m going to focus on the coincidental relationship between this horror and the cold beer, so many enjoy.
Thanks to the sudden coercion and fear of the virus, many people are wrongly correlating these feelings to the established beer brand. America is a clear example of this attitude in an article written by Al Root; he states that talk show hosts and US media have been discussing the fact that nearly 38% of Americans wouldn’t buy Corona beer under any circumstances. After, Corona published a statement showing that the firm’s sales have risen by 5% in the US in the past year. This then contradicts national surveys, so it begs the question, how are sales up?
Writer David Mikkelson wrote an article based on this fact, and he found that the world’s largest brewing giant, which is behind Corona, Stella Artois and Budweiser predicted a fall by 10% of earnings due to the fall in demand in China—resulting in the firm’s shares falling by 8%. AB InBev estimated that loses of up to £221 million where seen in the first two months of 2020. So clearly the virus is impacted the beer market.
Since the emergence of the virus to the UK, however, it is not uncommon to see empty supermarket shelves excluding to odd Brussel sprout and strangely Corona beer. So how have sales increased when cleary sales have fallen? That is a question I leave to you, the readers.
JBLOGS 