Scotch whisky remains dominant in IWSR Magazine’s annual list of top travel retail spirits brands – but about half of the 27 brands appearing in the top 100 suffered declines in 2015.
The travel retail spirits market overall contracted by -3.3% in 2015, representing a decrease of 750,000 cases.
Malt Scotch whiskies such as Edrington’s The Macallan, Diageo’s The Singleton, Beam Suntory’s Laphroaig and William Grant’s The Balvenie largely bucked the negative trend. IWSR said malts were outperforming blended Scotch varieties “as consumer interest in the segment’s high production values soars”, reflecting the situation in domestic markets.
Diageo’s Johnnie Walker remained in top spot by a large margin. Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Regal overtook the company’s Absolut brand to take third position, while Bacardi rum dropped from fifth to seventh. [See table below for the top ten rankings.]
Many of the brands appearing on the Travel Retail Top 100 list last year suffered in 2015. The share of the top 100 brands fell from 83% in 2014 to 82.6% in 2015, suggesting that some of the leading brands were hit the hardest by the sector’s downturn.
Four of the top five travel retail brands experienced volume losses over the year, ranging from 7,000 to over 100,000 cases. IWSR said most of the volume losses stemmed from the Americas and Asia Pacific duty free/travel retail regions, which respectively declined by -6.3% and -1.3% overall between 2014 and 2015.
The travel retail Cognac market also experienced a mixed performance in 2015, with sales down in Asia Pacific and Europe, but marginal growth in the Americas. Of the five Cognac brands to appear in the top 100 list, Hennessy and Martell posted overall growth, while Courvoisier, Rémy Martin and Camus saw volumes decline.
Gin was one of the few spirits categories to build additional volumes in the travel retail channel in 2015, growing by +5.7% overall. All five gin brands in the top 100 improved on their 2014 positioning.
Vodka was the second-largest contributor to the top 100 travel retail spirits rankings after Scotch, but there was also a mixed performance among the category’s leading brands.
New entrants into the Top 100 list in 2015 include Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, Wild Turkey Bourbon and Bundaberg rum. All of these brands experienced double-digit growth over the year.
Bowmore, Drambuie and Becherovka dropped out of the top 100.
