South Korea: HiteJinro’s new beer Kelly sells 100 mln bottles in its first 99 days on the market

Some 3.3 million boxes of Kelly, HiteJinro’s sixth beer brand and the first lager beer, were sold as of July 11.

The company said the upbeat sales figure equates to 11.7 beers sold every second or 2.3 beers consumed by one person among the total population that is of legal drinking age.

Kelly also set a record with hitting the 100 million mark over the shortest period among the local beer brands. The previous record was owned by Terra, another HiteJinro beer that debuted in 2019.

Kelly's release has buoyed sales of the company's other beer brands. In June, HiteJinro’s beer sales increased by 33 percent compared to sales records from March this year before Kelly was launched. Sales records in the second quarter of this year also went up by 12 percent.

Consumers’ responses at major supermarkets also contributed to Kelly’s rapid growth in sales. According to two major supermarkets' sales data in June, HiteJinro’s market share of domestic beer sales was about 49.6 percent on average, which is an increase of about 7 percent since March. Purchase records at major supermarkets are seen as meaningful indicators of consumption trends in the Korean market.