The liquor maker, known for brands like Officer’s Choice, plans to add two to three new brands over the next fiscal year, with an aim to increase the share of its “prestige-and-above” segments from 42% to 50%, its managing director Alok Gupta told Mint.
The luxury spirits segment—comprising 3% of the 410 million cases sold in 2024—accounts for over 20% of the alcobev industry’s profits, according to data from the sector-specific consultancy IWSR.
Allied Blenders expects this market to expand further as a section of its consumers continue to favour high-quality products.
Gupta said that though the Indian liquor market is in a wait-and-watch phase due to a slowdown in demand, premium and luxury spirits continue to grow.
“The consumption has been impacted, largely due to what’s happening in the macroeconomic space. It is a bit of a wait-and-watch situation, with the prestige-and-above segments, including semi-luxury and luxury, seeing growth, but others expected to see some short-term impact. There may be some shift in consumer sentiment, but it’s not that they are walking away from the category,” he said.
Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) is categorized under popular, prestige, premium, and luxury segments.
While three brands—Officer’s Choice Blue, Sterling Reserve B7, and Iconiq White—will drive the company’s volume growth, other businesses will add value.
The company is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to build, buy, and partner with other businesses to strengthen its premium-to-luxury offerings. “We want to meaningfully achieve double-digit growth, which would translate to 2-2.5% value growth,” he said.
Allied Blenders reported a revenue of ₹2,342.1 crore in the December quarter of 2024-25, up from ₹2,074.9 crore a year ago. Its profit after tax rose to ₹81 crore from the ₹2.5 crore loss reported in the same quarter a year ago.
About 96% of the company’s current revenue comes from whisky.
Inorganic growth push
Gupta said the company currently has about eight brands in its semi-luxury and luxury portfolio and sees a few more opportunities in the non-whisky segment. These will be “not just India” brands but also concepts or ideas that we fit beyond India.
“We have now curated our portfolio mix and are building things from an asset-light approach and not just building everything ourselves. There are many more exciting brands out there,” he said.
The company that largely focused on three or four brands—including its flagship Officer’s Choice and Officer’s Choice Blue—before 2024, banked its next phase of growth on the fact that about 2-3% of the 400 million cases of alcohol sold in the country are consumed by experience-driven consumers.
Accordingly, it started aligning its portfolio with consumption trends. “In luxury consumption, for instance, there’s a broader culture of drinking single malts, tequilas and rums. There is also a strong cocktail culture now in India,” Gupta said.
In 2024, it developed its own gin brand, Zoya, and single malt brand, Arthaus, which competes with Copper Dog and Monkey Shoulder in pricing. It also partnered with alcohol distributor Roust to launch a Russian vodka.
This year, it acquired a stake in brands such as Rock Paper Rum and bought the brand rights to distribute alcohol made by Pumori gin maker Fullarton Distilleries for about ₹50 crore.
“Why we bought a brand like Rock Paper Rum is not because it just happens to be another great rum but because the founding team there has figured out the consumption trend, and how to keep fitting into those experiences,” he said.
It also set up a new company, ABD Maestro Pvt. Ltd, earlier this year in partnership with actor Ranveer Singh to launch brands from other startups. This business will include its gins, Russian Standard vodka, and Arthaus.
The company has already announced an investment of ₹527 crore and has made acquisitions in the distillery space (to start operations in early 2026) and packaging material space (PET bottles for Officer’s Choice).
At present, the company supplies about a third of its total volume by itself and outsources the rest. It would like to increase that to 100% by 2027-28.
It sells about 34 million cases every year. In the third quarter, it sold 8.9 million cases, a quarter-on-quarter rise of 7.1% and a year-on-year rise of 11.3%. Its mass-premium category, led by Officer’s Choice, had a high single-digit year-on-year growth.
With mass-premium brands driving its revenues, the company plans to maintain and grow the market share of its flagship Officer’s Choice whisky while focusing on improving gross margins.