ABSTRACT
Concentration in the beer industry is more conspicuous than in any other alcoholic beverage sector. The decade of the 1970s witnessed a revolution in marketing technology led by such conglomerates as Philip Morris, which deployed their highly sophisticated advertising and promotional tactics so successfully tested in tobacco to beer and other industries. In view of the beer economy’s internationalisation, data of national market shares must be complemented by the international market shares of the major corporations. From 1623, when the first commercial brewery was set up in New Amsterdam, the USA has grown into the world’s leading beer producer, with almost a quarter of global output at present. What stands out in the world’s second largest beer-producing country is that it remains the only major DME where a handful of firms do not produce over half of the national alcohol output.
