Diageo of the UK and France?s Pernod Ricard dominate The International Wine & Spirit Record (IWSR) top 50 brands in the latest global duty free/travel retail rankings for 2005.

Each company placed nine brands in the list. Pernod Ricard would have had 10 if you consider SPI-owned Stolichnaya, which Pernod Ricard distributes on a global basis.
Diageo?s domination of the channel is truly impressive. The company?s Johnnie Walker brand is far and away the leading brand, more than 600,000 cases larger than its nearest competitor, Absolut. Such is its domination that its Johnnie Walker Red and Johnnie Walker Black brand lines would individually rank as the second and third largest brands at 718,000 and 602,000 cases respectively.
Johnnie Walker was also the second-largest growing brand in duty free last year, posting an 83,500 rise. Diageo has two other brands in the top five with Smirnoff and Baileys.
Pernod Ricard?s flagship Chivas Regal brand is ranked third overall and, in another case of the big getting bigger, was the fifth-largest growth brand in duty free/travel retail after posting a 31,000-case increase. Its Jameson brand was the seventh-largest growth brand, posting an 18,000-case increase to reach 206,000 cases.
Its newly acquired Ballantine?s brand (ranked seventh) had a remarkably strong year, despite the dislocation caused by its sale to Pernod Ricard as part of the larger Allied Domecq deal. Ballantine?s sales increased by 3.2% to 437,000 cases.
V&S Group also saw a particularly effective performance in 2005. Absolut is now the second-largest brand in duty free/travel retail. V&S? strategy to grow Absolut outside the US has produced rapid results and the brand is breaking out of those confines, growing in most global markets, including duty free.
Absolut also posted the largest growth last year, increasing by a phenomenal 133,000 cases. V&S also placed four other brands on the largest growth list: Cruzan Rum, Xant?, Aalborg and Gammel Dansk.
Viewed by categories, Scotch whisky posted the most brands in the top 50 list with 12. This included two single malt brands, Glenfiddich (ranked 14) and The Macallan (ranked 42). Liqueurs had eight entrants, led by Baileys, which posted an 18% volume increase in 2005.
Cognac is well represented in the duty free/travel retail channel with five entrants in the top 50 list. In value terms, its weighting in the channel is much greater. Number 13-ranked R?my Martin and number-14 ranked Hennessy are running almost neck-and-neck with only 7,000 cases separating the two brands.
The complete Top 50 list can be found in the October issue of The IWSR Drinks Record magazine