Kazakhstan wine sales fall 12% as imports gain share of shrinking supply

Wine sales and supply contract

Wine sales in Kazakhstan fell 12% year on year between January and August, according to data from the country’s Bureau of National Statistics cited by The Astana Times and an Energyprom analysis published on November 4. Domestic wine production declined 17.2%, while imports decreased by a more moderate 2.2%.¹

Because domestic output contracted more sharply, imported wine represented 39% of available market resources, up from 35.2% a year earlier—a gain of 3.8 percentage points. The change reflects a larger relative position for foreign products within a shrinking market, not an increase in import volume.¹

The published material provided no absolute figures for wine sales, production or imports, so the changes cannot be quantified in liters. The import-share measure concerns wine available to the market rather than verified retail purchases.¹

Prices rise, but causation is unclear

Wine prices were 12.8% higher in September than a year earlier, while prices across the wider alcoholic-beverages category rose 14.8%. These data do not establish that price increases caused wine sales to fall: sales cover January through August, the price comparison concerns September, and no equivalent monthly sales comparison was reported.¹

Diverging trends across alcohol categories

The wine downturn formed part of a broader but uneven weakening in Kazakhstan’s alcohol market. Beer sales declined 5% in January-August and cognac sales dropped 41.9%, whereas vodka sales increased 4.5%. Household spending on alcoholic drinks also fell 4% in the first half of the year, extending an existing downward trend.¹

Cognac production decreased 41.9% to 5.2 million liters, and cognac imports fell 41.5%; domestic producers retained a 78.5% market share. Beer production declined 6% to 445 million liters, below domestic beer sales of 482.3 million liters.¹

Imported beer’s share of available market resources consequently edged up to 10.4% from 10%, while beer exports fell 22.6%. Together with vodka’s sales increase, the contrasting category results indicate that the contraction was not uniform across the alcohol market.¹

Basis and limits of the figures

The Astana Times and Energyprom figures were secondary reporting and analysis based on official statistics from Kazakhstan’s national statistics bureau. The operational data may later be revised, and available market resources should not be treated as equivalent to the volume consumers ultimately purchased.¹