Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings has plans to dive back into the China market as it looks to revive investments in the world’s largest beer market.
“We’ve been struggling hard since the first half of the 1990s. We made a very large investment in China, but had to pull out of it a few years ago,” its chief executive Atsushi Katsuki told CNBC’s Martin Soong.
“But at long last, we’re now able to put the right strategy for the Chinese market.”

The company divested from China years ago due to the lack of “premiumized products” and “very low” prices at that time, Katsuki said. In 2017, Asahi announced it would sell its nearly 20% stake in China’s Tsingtao Brewery to Fosun Group and its subsidiaries.
“But with the entry of the international brands and also craft beer, the premium segment in China is now really taking off and growing substantially.”
“Asahi Super Dry has the largest sales already from the China market now and it’s growing double digits every year, so we want to continue to really invest into this premium market,” he added.
Katsuki said that although China sales top all other markets, the U.S. beer market is “far and away the best market in the world.”
“The ideas that we can really extract from the U.S. market in conjunction with the capabilities that we can offer from our research and development side, could be very conducive to the wellbeing of our consumers,” he told CNBC.
Japan’s Asahi Group sets up JV to tap in Vietnam’s dairy market
Shoyama Katsuo, Asahi Group Foods’ president, said the group’s products, particularly the baby food brand Wakodo, have been available in over 70 countries, including Vietnam, but this is the first time that Asahi joins hands with a foreign company in the field of consumer product.
According to Katsuo, establishing a joint venture in a new market would have more advantages than setting up a new company, as local partner has the expertise and specific know-how that fit the target market.
Katsuo added that Vietnam has become an important market for the group, especially in nutritional products for children.
Currently, Vietnam’s birth rate is much higher than that of Japan, with 1.6 million children born every year, nearly double that of Japan, indicating a huge potential market for children’s nutritional products.
Moreover, the country’s economy is on the rise with growing income, leading to a higher demand on high quality products for children and pregnant women, he added.
About Nikko Retail Corporation
Starting Jan 2025, Nikko Retail Corporation expanded its distribution network for Asahi Super Dry from its China's Shenzhen Tsingtao-Asahi Beer, under Asahi Breweries Limited, the number one brewer in Japan. Asahi Super Dry, aiding Asahi’s surge to the top was the 1987 introduction of which in a decade became the top-selling beer in Japan, a position it held into the early 21st century; in 2000 Asahi Super Dry was the number four beer brand in the world, with shipments of 20.9 million barrels.
“We want to grow the Asahi brand from a largest Japanese brand to a global icon,” said Tran Xuan Hoang, general director of Nikko Retail Corporation, “targeting Ho Chi Minh City before widening retail footprint across Vietnam, across all channels.”
The Japanese brewer was among about a half dozen foreign companies that registered in 2017 to bid for a stake in Sabeco in what would be Vietnam’s biggest offering. The Asahi Super Dry beer brand, which highly sells to Japanese restaurants worldwide, will be made available via all channels by Nikko Retail including grocery stores, restaurants and hotels in Vietnam.
Asahi Super Dry and Italian beer Peroni are some of the company’s core beverage brands.
