Big Brewers Looking Back to Mature Markets?

For several years the Big Thesis in the global beer business has been that the Big Four brewers -- ABI, SABMiller, Heineken, and Molson Coors -- must use their mature market profits to acquire more breweries in emerging markets to continue to grow. But an interesting piece in the Economist this week turns the tables on that theory, based upon the assumption that all the low hanging fruit in emerging markets has been plucked, emerging markets are less profitable, their growth is slowing, and emerging markets have a long way to go before they come close to touching the profits of the big mature markets. Big global brewers, says the Economist, must learn to sell more beer at home

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