San Miguel int’l beer sales up 40%

San Miguel Corp. continued to post significant improvement in its international beer operations with sales volume for August rising 40 percent to 4.3 million cases from last year’s 3.1 million cases.

Following this healthy growth, revenues rose by 25 percent to $25.1 million and operating income increased by 64 percent to $1.5 million.

For the first eight months, SMC’s international beer revenues amounted to $153.7 million, while operating income totaled $1.7 million, a reversal of the $7.9 million loss in 1999.

J. Boag & Son Ltd., the Australian brewer which SMC acquired this year, posted a 30 percent increase in sales volume and registered AS$11.6 million in revenues for the first two months after SMC completed the acquisition in July.

J. Boag sales volume amounted to 552,000 cases for the period, a 30 percent improvement from last year. San Miguel expects to further enhance these results as it starts programs to maximize brewery capacity to produce the company’s own beers.