Sunday 3 September 2006

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

AMERICAS: Enduring popularity of cocktails drives growth in super-premium spirits

Figures released by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States show that imports of whiskey and vodka rose year-on-year to June 2006 by 22.4% and 14.9% respectively by value whereas imports of rum declined by 0.7% and brandy and gin imports were virtually static showing increases of 1.1% and 1.8%.

Figures for exports are equally varied with whiskey up 21.7%, rum up 120.6%, brandy up 27.7%, vodka up 78.6% and gin down 13.1%.

The enduring popularity of the cocktail drove the 23% growth in sales of super-premium spirits in 2005.

Saturday 2 September 2006

INSURANCE

ASIA: Rise in middle-class prosperity drives growth in the Chinese insurance market

Growth in the Chinese insurance market will be driven by the growth in the middle-class - those who are sufficiently prosperous to take a long-term view of their own financial security.

Although the insurance industry is by definition about risk, this inherent risk is exacerbated when entering developing markets with huge potential such as China. Specific issues are the difficulty in recruiting experienced local staff, the sheer size of the country which creates problems in providing national coverage, the regulatory and corporate governance environment and low interest rates leading to paltry returns on fixed-income investments

Friday 1 September 2006

MEDIA

EUROPE: Changing trends in communications consumption and the potential impact of convergence emerge in Ofcom's Communications Market report.

On 10 August 2006 the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK's communications industry regulator, published their third annual Communications Market report.

Total retail revenue in the UK communications sector in 2005 increased 5% to £50bn whilst average household spend on communications rose by less than 1% to £87.67 per month; mobile communications was the largest component, representing 35% of total spend. The proportion of household expenditure spent on communications service fell for the first time in 5 years from 4.63% in 2004 to 4.60% in 2005 due in the most part to falling pric

Media coverage of the report has focused on the evidence relating to the divergent consumption patterns of the key 16-24 year age group who spend on average 21 minutes more time online per week, send 42 more SMS text messages, but spend over seven hours less time watching television than the average for the population as a whole. The Simultaneous Media Usage Survey (SIMM), conducted by BIGresearch in October 2003 for the American Press Institute noted similar trends in the US when they observed that for "simultaneous online users, TV viewing is down 8.8% among 18 to 24 year-olds and down 12.2% among 25 to 34 year-olds in favor of video games."

The emergence of converged services has continued into 2006 with the bundling of fixed-line and broadband offerings predominant alongside internet television, television to mobile and internet telephony.