Russian Coffee Market has Grown Back

According to rbc.ru, in 2016 the sales volume in Russian coffee market increased by 1.2% while the year before the volume reduced by 0.5%. Among the main reasons of this change specialists name the promotions and the fact that Russians are turning away from tea. The tea sales are decreasing the second year in a row.

According to Nielsen retail audit covering the period from February 2016 to January 2017, the main share belongs to instant coffee – 38.7% and 48.5% by volume and value respectively. The share of natural coffee (both beans and ground coffee) is significantly less – 14.2% by volume and 10.5% by value. Though it was the natural coffee that showed sales growth in 2016: plus 6% by volume and plus 15.8% by value. Instant coffee increased only by sales value, by 8.9%, but by sale volume it lost 0.4%.

Specialists associate this improvement with intense marketing activity – coffee was one of the most promoted products during the year. Plus, certain amounts of consumers who had preferred tea turned to coffee, and this also influenced the sales.

Unlike coffee, the tea sales are decreasing the second year in a row. In 2015 the sales volume dropped by 4.4% and then by 4% more in 2016. And this applies to both black and green tea.

This reduction could be connected not only with the popularity of coffee, but also with the growing interest to various hot drinks, especially those made of herbs.

In general, hot drinks market (which includes tea and coffee) kept declining in 2016 though the decline slowed down in comparison with previous years. The sales volume reduced by 1.3% while the year before it was 2.4%.

Another tendency of 2016 was price dynamics slowing down almost three times. Average market price for 1 kilogram of product rose by 8% while in 2015 the growth made 23%. Considerably, this became one of the reasons for the decrease in hot drinks sales value – from 20.1% in 2015 to 6.7% in 2016.