India is one of the fastest growing alcohol markets in the world. Rapid increase in urban population, sizable middle class population with rising spending power, and a sound economy are certain significant reasons behind increase in consumption of alcohol in India.
Our latest report “Indian Alcohol Consumption - The Changing Behavior” provides a comprehensive analysis of the market size of alcohol industry on the basis of type of products, consumption in different states, retail channel and imported and domestic. The Indian alcohol industry is segmented into IMFL (Indian made foreign liquor), IMIL (Indian made Indian liquor), Wine, Beer and imported alcohol. Imported alcohol has a meager share of around 0.8% in the Indian market. The heavy import duty and taxes levied raise the price of imported alcohol to a large extent. Alcohol is exempted from the taxation scheme of GST.
The Indian alcohol market is growing at a CAGR of 8.8% and it is expected to reach 16.8 Billion liters of consumption by the year 2022. The popularity of wine and vodka is increasing at a remarkable CAGR of 21.8% and 22.8% respectively. India is the largest consumer of whiskey in the world and it constitutes about 60% of the IMFL market.
Though India is one of the largest consumers of alcohol in the world owing to its huge population, the per capita alcohol consumption of India is very low as compared to the Western countries. The per capita consumption of alcohol per week for the year 2016 was estimated at 147.3 ml and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% to 227.1 ml according to our estimates.
The states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Sikkim Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are amongst the largest consumers of alcohol in India. The most popular channel of alcohol sale in India is liquor stores as alcohol consumption is primarily an outdoor activity and supermarkets and malls are present only in the tier I and tier II cities of India.
The trends and pattern of alcohol consumption are changing in the country. With the increasing acceptance of women consuming alcohol, growing popularity of wine and high demand for expensive liquor, the market scenario seems to be very optimistic in the near future. We conducted a consumer research study for the alcohol market with around 1,000 respondents from the cities of Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore. The study reflected changing pattern of the consumer’s mindset towards alcohol consumption in India. 3% of the respondents who consumed alcohol favored wine for its health benefits. Though the popularity of whiskey is highest in the Indian market, its market share is expected to decrease in future.