INTERNATIONAL. LVMH-owned Hennessy has been named as the top-performing global spirits brand in this year’s IWSR World Class Brands rankings.
The Cognac rose from third position in the 2014 list to edge ahead of Brown Forman-owned Jack Daniel’s, which maintained second place. Pernod Ricard-owned Jameson ranked third, Bacardi-owned Grey Goose came fourth, and Beam Suntory-owned Jim Beam placed fifth.
Last year’s top-ranked brand Johnnie Walker only came in at number 34 in this year’s list, with the fall attributed to a loss of global volumes between 2013 and 2014.
The IWSR’s World Class Brands list rates international brands – of which 142 were classified as such – based on overall market volume in 2014, average price per case and volume growth over the last year.
Hennessy recorded a high rate of growth in travel retail, according to IWSR data, with overall market volume of 5.2 million cases in 2014, an average price per case of just under US$800 and volume growth of +3% in 2014. The brand’s performance in the US market was especially strong, with high rates of growth also recorded in South Africa and Nigeria. A crackdown on conspicuous consumption in China led to a -21% decline there in 2014, while the economic problems in another key market for the brand, Russia, also had a negative impact.
IWSR also noted that Jack Daniel’s was “riding the crest of the US whiskey revival in its large domestic market”, with innovations also helping to bring in non-traditional consumers.
Mirroring Johnnie Walker’s fall in the 2015 list, no Scotch brand ranked in the top ten despite having the largest overall number of brands on the list with 40. The growth of US and, to a lesser extent, Irish whiskey may be a contributing factor behind the Scotch slowdown, according to IWSR.
 |
Click on the above to view the enlarged image |
