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Not Even An Economic Slowdown Can Wet Down Nigerians’ Thirst For Fine Wine

Not Even An Economic Slowdown Can Wet Down Nigerians’ Thirst For Fine Wine

Nigeria is known for its high spenders who don’t spare anything to splash their oil-money on luxury goods from private jets to champagne. It is even speculated that there are as many people popping expensive wine bottles in the West African country as in France.

But a commodity rout that hurt the country’s man export of oil in 2015 has seen its economy – the largest in Africa – shrink. This has affected several sectors including wine consumption.

People in the continent’s top oil producer consumed less wine in 2015 compared to the last few years when import of the fizzy drinks more than doubled, BBC reported.

According to the International Wine and Spirits Research, Nigeria was the 22nd biggest consumer of champagne in the world in 2014 when it imported 768,131 bottles and consumed about 1.1 million.

Analysts say the despite the consumption slowdown last year, the country’s wine market was still showing potential for growth and is expected to average about 12 percent increase per year in the next half-a-decade or so.

There is also a steady rise in the number of new wine bars and retailers opening up in major cities in the country, something that confirms the growing appetite by consumers despite the gloomy economic outlook.

“We’ve had the income growth – Nigeria’s GDP growth – over the last decade has been much stronger and as the population grows older they (tend) to drink wine rather than other drinks,” Victor Ajibola, an analysts with Euromonitor International, told BBC.

According to a new report by just-drinks, which named Nigeria as the next boom market for drinks, the presence of a relatively youthful consumer base who are earning a good income and moving to urban areas, could be the main reason for the rise in consumption.

“Economic and demographic factors are expanding the personal income of increasingly large sections of the population, who are also urbanising in search of work, thus becoming more exposed to international trends and products,” the report says.

As a region, sub-Saharan Africa has been come the target market for many wine and spirits companies and investors due to its young population that it quickly entering the middle class.

While alcohol consumption has declining in developed nations like the US and China, Africa has been the fastest-growing market for beer and other fizzy drinks.

Wine consumption in Africa is rising five times faster than the global average, according to a study of 24 sub-Saharan African countries released last year by British wine consultancy IWSR.

African urbanites, and youngsters in particular, are increasingly turning to wine as their libation of choice, Reuters reported in June 2015.

“Young people are taking to wine because it’s considered a sophisticated product. Drinking wine or spirits has a touch of luxury,” Cameroonian wine importer Felix Kamdem told Reuters.