Japan ousts China to reclaim No. 1 in Korea's foreign beer market

Chinese Tsingtao beer and Japanese Sapporo beer, along with other beer imports, are displayed at a supermarket in Seoul in November. [NEWS1]

Japanese beer has reclaimed the number one spot for Korea's beer imports after five years, while Chinese beer imports fell to third place due to the fall in China's Tsingtao beer sales after a video of a man urinating in Tsingtao's brewery went viral.

Beer imports from Japan in 2023 jumped 283 percent on-year, amounting to $55.516 million, according to the Korea Customs Service on Wednesday. It has been five years since 2018 when Japanese beer imports ranked first.

Japanese beer imports had dropped substantially in July 2019, when anti-Japanese sentiment peaked after the Japanese government imposed export bans on some key materials to Korea's technology industry.

Japanese beer imports dropped to second place among all beer imports and further plummeted to ninth place in 2020 and 2021, and rebounded to sixth place in 2022.

Chinese beer imports, on the other hand, slid from the top spot down to third place last year, having dropped 17.2 percent on-year to $30.163 million. Chinese beer imports had placed first for both monetary value and mass in 2022.

Chinese beer imports significantly dropped in December last year, amounting to $585,000, and placed seventh among all beer imports.

The drop comes after a video of a man urinating in a malt tank at a Tsingtao brewery in Shandong Province, China, circulated online in October.

Tsingtao had been the top choice among Chinese beer among Koreans, and the brand reached first place in terms of market share among all beer imports in the first half of 2023.

Though BK, Tsingtao's domestic importer, clarified that beer produced in the factory where the incident occurred does not enter the Korean market, consumer sentiment took a hit nevertheless. Sales for the beer in Korea reportedly dropped by almost half.

Tsingtao's market value on the Shanghai Stock Exchange lost 4.2 billion yuan ($618 million) in a single day, with stock prices plummeting from 81 yuan to 75 yuan on Oct. 23 last year, according to Bloomberg. It has mostly recovered since.

Japan's Asahi beer, U.S. beer Budweiser and Netherlands's Heineken saw increases in sales in Korea to fill up Tsingtao's spot.

Last year's beer imports ranked by country was Japan in first place, followed by the Netherlands, China, the United States and Poland, with $55.51 million, $33.56 million, $30.16 million, $16.93 million and $13.72 million spent on imports for each country, respectively.

Hong Kong was the biggest importer of Korea's beer exports last year, having spent $29.45 million. Japan, the United States and Mongolia followed with $13.87 million, $8.77 million, and $8.74 million spent, respectively.

BY KIM JU-YEON, CHOI SEO-IN [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]