October 11: Coors Light and Miller Lite will be teaming up to enable them to compete more strongly against Bud in the US market.
SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing are forming a joint venture in North America called MillerCoors to create a brand portfolio that in addition to their flagship beers includes imports such as Peroni, Molson and Pilsner Urquell and a range of craft and specialty beers.
For years, Anheuser-Busch has been the runaway leader in US beer with Miller and Coors trailing. Both Coors, with its merger with Canada’s Molson, and Miller’s acquisition by London-based SAB have been slightly stronger but the latest move gives them better economies of scale.
Combined, MillerCoors will have US volume sales of 69 million barrels and sales of $6.6 billion. That’s far short of Anheuser-Busch’s volumes sales of 102.3 million barrels in 2006 but much closer than either Miller or Coors in the past.
