Danish veteran, Danish rookie

Grupa Carlsberg Polska, which currently holds third position in the Polish beer market with approximately 14-15 percent market share by sales, is raising the ante in the very competitive Polish beer market.

"By 2010 we want to increase our market share to 20 percent," Carlsberg Polska's spokesperson, Leszek Siwecki said.  In the first nine months of 2005, his company sold 3.4 million hectoliters of beer, which was a nine-percent increase in comparison to the corresponding period of 2004. The Harnaś brand was the main driver behind this growth, accounting for almost 25 percent of the group's sales.

Carlsberg has systematically increased its sales by nearly nine percent in recent years, which is two or three times the average growth rate in the market. This year it plans to sell between 4.3-4.4 million hectoliters of beer, in comparison to the 4.1 million sold in 2004 and 3.8 million hectoliters in 2003. Present on the Polish market since 1996, when it acquired minority shares in the Okocim brewery, Carlsberg Polska currently has three breweries in Poland: in Brzesko, Szczecin and Sierpc. Recently, it ceased production in its Wrocław plant. Its portfolio of brands includes: Carlsberg, Harnaś, Okocim, Karmi, Kasztelan, Bosman, Piast and Volt.

Introduced just last year, Harnaś is already the eighth best-selling beer brand in Poland, claiming approximately 3.5 percent of the market. The company's flagship brand, Carlsberg, is the second-biggest international premium beer in the country, with a 35-percent share of the sector in the first half of 2005, up from 31 percent in the corresponding period of 2004.

The newcomer

Royal Unibrew Polska came into being in April this year, after Faxe Polska - the official importer of products from The Danish Brewery Group - bought two breweries belonging to Browary Polskie Brok Strzelec. The breweries, Strzelec and Brok, located in the Pomeranian towns of Jędrzejów and Koszalin respectively, were acquired by the new company along with the minority 48-percent share in the Perła brewery in the Lubelskie voivodship. The value of the investment was zł.177.8 million.

"We hope that our revenue this year will reach between zł.130-150 million," the general director of Royal Unibrew Polska Robert Papla said back in April. The company also declared that it wants to produce over 500,000 hectolitres of beer this year in Poland, and estimates its market share at two percent. Royal Unibrew employs around 350 people in Poland and its main beer brands include the Danish Faxe, as well as Brok, Strzelec, Kanclerz, Rybnicki, Sokół, Cooler, Crystal Ice and Red Erik. However, only Faxe, Brok Sambor, Sokół and Cooler are distributed over the whole of Poland, as Royal Unibrew Polska is mainly concentrated on cementing its position in regional markets.