The spirits industry is on course to surpass its wine peers in share size of total beverage alcohol volumes, according to the World Spirits Alliance trade association.
In its ‘Spirits: Global Economic Impact Study 2024’ report, released today. the organisation utilised data from IWSR and research by Oxford Economics to highlight the role that the category plays as a “significant economic driver” worldwide. One section of the report, which considers the broad trends affecting spirits, cited figures showing that in 2022, the category accounted for 9.9% of total beverage alcohol (TBA) volumes, just behind wine with 10.4% share.
Beer was far out in front at just over 75%.
“(Over the last 20 years,) spirits has increased its importance within TBA,” the report says. ” While beer, understandably, dominates volumes, spirits has grown its share markedly and now sells almost as many bottles as wine (2.67bn cases in 2022 compared to wine’s 2.8 bn).
“Should current trends in both categories continue, spirits volumes will soon surpass those of wine.”
The World Spirits Alliance (WSA) conceded that domestic white spirits, most notably baijiu in China, account for a sizable proportion of the category’s overall volumes. That said, the report claims that the segment’s share of total spirits declined markedly in the decade from 2012, from 45.7% to 33.3% in 2022. International spirits, meanwhile, have grown their share from 54.3% to 66.7%.
Looking forward, the trade association said it expects all spirits categories to grow “in the medium term”, with tequila & mezcal and Indian whisky both set to do particularly well. “The latter is the world’s fastest-growing spirit category,” the WSA said, “predicted to grow by almost 50m cases by 2027.”
WSA president, and CEO of Moët Hennessy, Philippe Schaus, added: “The [spirits] industry contributes significantly to government revenues through taxes and tariffs … . In 2022, spirits manufacturers’ total gross value added (GVA) contribution to global GDP was US$230bn.
“To put this in context, that is only slightly less than the total GDP of Portugal for the same year. “
To access the ‘Spirits: Global Economic Impact Study 2024’ report, click here.
