The beer industry in the United States is an extremely competitive one. For years, the industry has been solely dominated by one contender, Anheuser Busch. However, large brewers have always been looking for opportunities to extend their reach in the industry and gain more market share. Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company have been historical staples of the American beer industry since the nineteenth century. These companies merged with international giants South African Breweries and Molson, respectively, in efforts to better compete in the United States brewing industry. However, they still could not manage to take a share of the Anheuser Busch Empire.
SABMiller and Molson Coors saw an opportunity in forming a joint venture that would be able to successfully compete with Anheuser Busch in the beer industry, and in 2008, created a third company called MillerCoors. The creation of MillerCoors was a success. Since the creation of the company, in June 2008, MillerCoors has been very profitable and has enjoyed steady growth in their market share. They have done this by integrating innovation as a major goal in their products, providing them with a certain level of differentiation, while reducing costs through the exploitation of synergies that exist in their different processes. MillerCoors was one of the very few breweries that performed positively throughout the economic recession that broke out in 2008.
Although things are looking very bright for MillerCoors in regards to their performance in the past few years, and their growth in market share, Anheuser Busch is still the giant of the beer industry and holds a 47% of the market share. MillerCoors trails AB in second place with a market
