The international market for flavoured alcoholic beverages (FABs), frequently packaged in glass, has reached in a few years consumption levels that have gone way beyond original estimates. The worldwide market has grown to reach nearly 338M 9-litre cases (including wine coolers) but a report by beverage industry analysts Canadean warns that a slowdown in growth over the next few years is expected as market saturation becomes closer with new products being launched one after the other. In 2002, the international market for FABs increased by 27% with sales in the world's three main markets, the US, Japan and the UK growing by 50%, 13% and 26% respectively. By 2004, these growth rates are expected to slump to less than 1% in the US and Japan while that of the UK will stand around 12%.
