La Bière Tsingtao

Tsingtao is a European-inspired beer form China, which is one of the strongest within its own domestic market, evidence of which is apparent from its universal ubiquity in many regions throughout China. The ownership of the brand has been complex throughout its history since its foundation in 1903 and has been complicated further since its public share floatation on the Honk Kong stock market in 1993. Through various quirks of the market, minority shares in Tsingtao have been owned by Anheuser Busch, InBev and Asahi since its shares entered the open market. Many foreign firms have now exited Tsingtao and Chinese business people have filled the vacuum as interest in the Chinese beer market increases, as the market begins to concentrate and leave behind the fragmentation that characterized its recent past.

Tsingtao itself has reigned in the number of brands and products it markets in China, preferring to invest in extra production capacity to better serve the diverse regions of China with greater efficiency. This should allow the Tsingtao brewery to reduce transportation costs to boost profitability and bring greater freshness to its products with more breweries located closer to the end consumer. At the same time as focusing on its domestic market, Tsingtao is also considering the problematic issue of increasing sales overseas, although by its own admission it has less experience in the softer skills of branding in a western context than the local and global rivals it encounters in foreign markets. The brand is continuing to pursue a positioning related to its origin and the obvious link to Chinese food in markets such as the UK and the US, but is also attempting to break out of this limited positioning to become a premium imported beer to be enjoyed either with or without food.

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