Stiff competition in Thailand’s ready-to-drink Japanese green tea market has led Suntory to focus more on oolong, a traditional Chinese tea.
Seishi Ueno (right), chief executive of Tipco F&B Co, introduces Tea + with Tanin ‘Bom’ Manoonsilp, the new presenter of Suntory oolong tea.
Green tea is quite a popular beverage in Thailand, topping 12 billion baht a year out of a total 16.5 billion from ready-to-drink teas.
The market for oolong tea remains light, with only 400 million baht in sales and a few players, while green tea is crowded by over 10 brands.
Tipco F&B Co, a joint venture between Tipco and Japan’s Suntory, considered these factors and adjusted its strategy by beefing up its Oolong products with the aim of raising sales revenue to 1 billion baht in three years.
It introduced Suntory oolong tea to the Thai market last August and made a full launch in the fourth quarter of 2013.
"The response exceeded our expectations, as we sold 10 million bottles of Suntory Tea+ Oolong in three months," said Seishi Ueno, the chief operation officer at Tipco F&B.
Suntory’s oolong tea has been available in Japan for 32 years. Thailand is the third country in the Asean region where the drink was introduced after Indonesia and Vietnam.
The beverage is beneficial to health and its popularity is rising as more market players are expected to drive the market value past 700 million baht this year, he said.
Market demand for oolong tea grew by 25% the past few years even with only a few oolong tea players in the market.
Suntory Tea+ is the only oolong tea produced in Thailand.
Apart from Suntory, two giants in the ready-to-drink green tea market — Ichitan and Oishi — are planning to launch similar oolong products this month. Ichitan Select Oolong will be available locally this month, as the company allocated 100 million baht to promote this tea.
The Oishi Group will announce the plan for its Oolong tea next week.
Suntory expects to spend some 500 million baht to promote Suntory Tea+ this year.
Tipco F&B hopes to triple its annual sales to about 1 billion baht within three years, becoming the country’s third-largest tea company.