Mumbai, Aug 31 - India's top beer maker United Breweries Ltd will spend about 12 billion rupees ($291 million) over three years to expand capacity, a senior company official said.
United Breweries, which has more than half the fast-expanding Indian market, expects beer consumption will grow in excess of 20 percent annually, President Kalyan Ganguly said late on Thursday. "We are expanding capacity in anticipation of buoyant growth," he said at the sidelines of a conference.
"Some of these will be greenfields, the rest will be to expand capacity in existing breweries," he said.
United Breweries, which has a joint venture with Scottish & Newcastle Plc, has a capacity now to roll out 120 million cases of beer annually, he said.
Consumption of beer per person in India, where production, sale and advertising of alcoholic drinks is tightly regulated, is just 1 litre, compared to an estimated 24 litres in China.
But that could change with new launches and easing regulations in some states, Ganguly said.
UB has an arrangement with northern Punjab state for exclusive brands, where consumption has jumped, he said. ($1=41.2 rupees)