Drea Knufken
The combined market cap of the world’s five biggest alcohol companies is $227 billion. Nearly 200 billion liters of alcohol were sold in 2004; that number has since gone up, thanks in large part to developing countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Still, “the leading alcohol marketing companies are nearly all headquartered in developed nations, rank among the world’s largest transnational corporations, and rely on large marketing budgets to dominate the market and extract oligopoly profits,” according to the World Health Organization. They profit heavily off those addicted to their products. In the US, for example, the “top top 5% of drinkers consume about 42% of the alcohol sold,” according to Corporations and Health. Add in minors, who consume about 17.5% of total alcohol sold, and binge drinkers, and you have an ongoing lucrative proposition.
