Past and Present

Kirin Group History

  • Building a unique business portfolio starting from beer and spanning Food & Beverages to Pharmaceuticals

Expanding our business horizons with our fermentation and biotechnology

The establishment of Japan Brewery in 1885 marked the start of over 100 years of innovation and growth for the Kirin Group. In that time, our business domain has grown and extended beyond the beer business and into the Pharmaceuticals and Health Science domains. We offer products and services that improve the quality of life of customers at various stages of their lives.
The Group’s powerful fermentation and biotechnologies are the key elements in our ability to innovate and broaden our business range. The culture technology and research cultivated in our founding business enabled us to develop products in the Health Science and Pharmaceuticals fields as we organically expanded our business domain.
The fermentation and biotechnology that are the source of our innovation join with our human resources, ICT, and marketing as the four capabilities that drive the Group’s growth. The Kirin Group has developed new markets and expanded business in recent years with a series of world firsts, including a 0.00% non-alcoholic beer, caffeine-free green tea, and the discovery of Lactococcus lactis strain Plasma that directly activates key immune cells.
We will continue pursuing innovation that can contribute to resolving social issues and that will enable our business to grow sustainably with society.

  • Expanding our business horizons with our fermentation and biotechnology

The Kirin Group Today

We attained our profit target on strong performances by the core domestic Food & Beverages and the Pharmaceuticals businesses

  • 2019 Consolidated revenue 1,941.3 billion yen Consolidated normalized operating profit 190.8 billion yen(Target for 2019 consolidated normalized operating profit 190.0 billion yen)

  • The Kirin Group Today

Fiscal 2019 Performance Highlights

Kirin Brewery

Four straight years of profit growth

Our ongoing focused marketing strategy generated a solid increase in sales volume of the core KIRIN ICHIBAN and Honkirin brands. Sales volume for our beer products increased from last year, overcoming a slight overall contraction in the market. In addition, our continued efforts to improve selling cost efficiency helped us achieve growth in both revenue*1 and profits.

  1. sales revenue after liquor tax
  • Kirin Brewery normalized operating profit and margin(Normalized operating profit / sales revenue after liquor tax),KIRIN ICHIBAN (can) and Honkirin sales volume

Myanmar Brewery

High market share maintained in expanding Myanmar market

Myanmar’s expanding economy, a growing beer-consumption demographic, and favorable weather fueled substantial growth in the beer market. Myanmar Brewery increased its sales volume by a substantial 20.9% from the previous year. A price hike at the start of the year also helped the company post a third straight year of growing earnings since joining the Kirin Group.

  • Myanmar Brewery normalized operating profit, Myanmar Brewerysales volume growth

Kyowa Kirin

Rising sales for global strategic products

Kyowa Kirin boosted sales of its global strategic products with the successful growth of Crysvita and Poteligeo in Europe and the United States and the launch of Nourianz in the United States. Revisions to the official drug prices in Japan had an impact, but the expanded sales overseas supported growth of 34.3 billion yen in revenue and 5.0 billion yen in profits in 2019.

 

  • Revenue by region