September 11 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian brewery Lomsko Pivo plans to increase slightly its domestic market share to two percent this year, a senior company official said on Friday.
"We plan around 2.0% for 2009. Now we are very close, at 95% of this target," marketing and sales director Zheliazko Zheliazkov told SeeNews.
Lomsko, which produces the Almus, Shopsko, Mizia and Sofia beer brands, expects a poorer performance this year compared to its 2008 results after a drop in tourist numbers affected sales in the summer. The brewer has been present on the market of neighbouring Romania since 2007, where it sells the Shopsko brand.
"Despite the eforts of the management, the successfull launch of the Lomsko Pivo brand and the change in packaging we would most probably fail to achieve the volume and the value of last year's sales," Zheliazkov said.
Company sales rose by 8.1% to 7.23 million levs ($5.18 million/3.69 million euro) in 2008. Lomsko Pivo has said it expected a five-to-seven percent drop in sales this year.
Lomsko Pivo is one of the eight members of the Bulgarian Brewers’ Union which produced a combined 5.373 million hectolitres of beer last year. The association provides no sales figures.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)