Emperador continues to tower over brandy category

The best selling brandy of 2014 was the Philippines’ Emperador once again, after the brand maintained its 2013 sales haul, according to the Millionaires’ Club 2015.

The Alliance Global Group brand achieved 33m 9-litre cases, over four times its closest rival in the list of best-selling brandy brands.

Mc Dowell’s No.1 Brandy, owned by Diageo subsidiary United Spirits of India, failed to cut the gap, losing 18% of its 2013 volumes and finishing 2014 on 7.6m cases.

The two brandy brands are ahead of top-placed Cognac Hennessy, which managed to add 1% in sales to finish on 5.5m cases, in what was otherwise a difficult year for the French brandy segment. Hennessy had a good year in the US, which made up for declines in Asia.

Diageo’s Honey Bee and Radico Khaitan’s Old Admiral completed the top five brandy brands with sales of 3.8m and 3.5m cases respectively.

Of the 15 brandy brands selling over 1m cases, six are based in India, selling mostly in the south of the country.

Meanwhile Martell and Remy Martin suffered badly at the hands of the ailing Chinese cognac market, dropping -27% and -6% respectively.

Courvoisier, with strong presence in the US, managed to post almost flat sales, finishing the year on -1%.

The Millionaires Club will be published in July as a supplement to Drinks International and on drinksint.com thereafter.