Russians Are World’s 2nd Highest Spenders on Alcohol

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 29, 2014) Russian consumers ranked second only to Estonians in terms of the amount of money they spent on alcoholic beverages last year, Euromonitor International said in a report.

While Estonian consumers spent 6.5 percent of their cash on beer, wine or spirits in 2013, Russians spent 5.8 percent, or $61.5 million, on alcohol.

Beer was the preferred tipple for Russians, with $27.5 million spent on it, whereas $21.9 million was sunk into spirits and $12 million on wine, Lenta.ru reported.

A large proportion of consumers’ money in Belarus, Peru, Latvia and Lithuania also went toward buying alcohol.

The highest per capita spender on alcohol in 2013 was Finland, followed by Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Estonia. The latter is expected to become the world’s leader in per capita spending on alcohol by 2021.

The report said that between 2008 and 2013 Hong Kong recorded the highest growth of per capita expenditure on alcohol.

The global average for consumer expenditure on booze was 1.5 percent, while per capita consumer alcohol spending in 2013 stood at $86.

The level of per capita consumer expenditure on alcoholic drinks in a country is directly influenced by government policies, such as alcohol bans, high taxes on spirits or advertising bans, the report said, adding that the share of consumer spending on alcohol sheds light on countries’ income levels, consumption habits and demographic trends.