IWSR Magazine has today released its Top 100 Travel Retail Brands ranking for 2016, indicating that overall global TR sales rose by +3.2% to 22.5m cases in 2016, in a year when ’the market began to recover following 2015’s downturn’.

The Johnnie Walker brand (Diageo) led all others with sales of 2,565m 9-litre (9L) equivalent cases, representing a rise of 3.5% over 2015 – equivalent to nearly three times the size of the number two brands, Chivas Regal (Pernod Ricard) with 886,200 (+2.5%).

The clear number three brand was Jack Daniel’s (Brown-Forman) with 880.3m cases, although this volume slipped by -0.3%. Absolut Vodka (Pernod Ricard) at number four slipped even more by -2.5% to 747.4m 9L cases, while the Baileys liqueur brand (Diageo) recorded sales 638.4m 9L cases, an increase of +2.8%.

ONLY THREE TOP 10 BRANDS DROPPED SALES

The Hennessy Cognac/Armagnac brand (LVMH) took sixth place with 630.5m 9L cases, shooting up +13.2% over 2016 as the fastest top ten climber, while the Bacardi rum brand (Bacardi Corp) achieved a 9L case-sale equivalent total of 614.2m – up a marginal +1.9%.

The IWSR 2016 top 10 liquor brand rankings out of the full study, which covers the industry’s top 100 brands worldwide. Click to enlarge.

The biggest fall in the top ten saw the Smirnoff Vodka (Diageo) brand fall by -12.5% to 539.5m cases as it ranked eighth last year, while Ballantine’s Scotch (Pernod Ricard) generated 531.6m 9L cases up +5.5% in 2016 to take ninth place.

Last but not least, Martell Cognac/Armagnac (Pernod Ricard) generated 376.5m 9L cases up +5.6% to take the tenth ranking last year.

In terms of ranking strengths amongst the top 10 alone, this means that Pernod Ricard has four brand (Chivas, Absolut, Ballantine’s and Martell), while Diageo has three (Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Smirnoff), while Brown-Forman, LVMH and Bacardi each have one travel retail top ten brand ranking each.

Needless to say, the Johnnie Walker brand dominates all others with its impressive 11.4% share of global travel retail spirits volumes.

Yet another piece of research released this year is the IWSR Global Trends Report 2017.

JW PREMIUM LINES STILL STRONG

IWSR said: “Sales of the biggest-selling variant, Johnnie Walker Red Label, continued to decline last year, but there was growth for the Black Label, Gold Reserve, Platinum and XR lines, as well as the relaunched Green Label malt.

“Johnnie Walker saw the largest volume gain of all the 27 scotch brands featured on the list. Scotch is the most-represented category on the list with 27 brands. Vodka is second with 17 brands featured.

“Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Regal reclaimed second place in the top 100 from Brown-Forman’s Jack Daniel’s. Jack Daniel’s sales grew by 11.5% in Europe last year, but declined in all other regions, particularly the Americas, despite the success of the new Tennessee Fire line, which was launched in travel retail in 2015.

CHIVAS REGAL – A STAR PERFORMER FOR PERNOD RICARD

“The three other US whiskies on the list, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey and Maker’s Mark all posted double-digit growth. Chivas Regal was one of Pernod Ricard’s best-performing top 100 brands, along with Martell, Jameson, Havana Club and Kahlúa.”

IWSR added that LVMH’s Hennessy Cognac also gained two places with a 13.2% growth in 2016 over 2015 as the brand moved from 8th to 6th place after rapid development in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region – its key regional markets.

IWSR’ analysts added: “Hennessy, travel retail’s best-selling Cognac, has also been one of the most consistent growth brands in the spirits sector over the past few years.

Just to put the 2016 travel retail volume sales into true volume perspective, here is a glimpse of the top 10 IWSR global spirits brands from its top 100 global domestic rankings (note the huge volumes).

VODKA CATEGORY FEATURES SEVERAL STAR BRANDS

“Pernod Ricard’s Martell Cognac entered the top ten following a 5.6% growth in travel retail sales in 2016. Martell’s travel retail volumes grew by 12.6% a year on average in the five years to 2016. Hennessy and Martell were the only Cognacs on the list to report growth in 2016.”

IWSR added that while sales of top ten brands Absolut and Smirnoff both declined last year, the vodka category still consists of several top-performing brands, with Nemiroff, Danzka, Żubrówka, Żołądkowa Gorzka, Beluga and Soplica all achieving double-digit growth.

Tito’s also entered the ranking for the first time, as sales grew from 5,000 to 33,000 cases, while Nemiroff rose from 25 to 14 in the top brands ranking.

For quick comparison, here is the 2014 global Top 10 travel retail spirits ranking from IWSR.

RESPECTED DF&TR RANKING

This 2016 ranking is part of IWSR’s annual assessment of the top 100 Travel Retail Brand list which is now widely recognised as the industry’s most authoritative source of data and analysis in both the domestic and travel retail distribution channels.

While the company claims it owns the world’s most comprehensive database, it is also introducing a new interactive online tool, which will include its travel retail data, plus additional data, analysis, product news and innovations in the channel.

For more information contact Helen Jagger at: [email protected] +44 (0)7976 809346. For other contacts: US & Canada: Brandy Rand – [email protected] +1 646 830 2616; and Rest of world: Graziella Jeffery – [email protected] +44 (0)20 7689 6834