The planned $100 billion merger of Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller will be a wake-up call to the overseas ambitions of Japanese brewers, which are struggling to grow at home in a saturated market with a shrinking population.
Japanese beer makers including Asahi Group Holdings and Kirin Holdings Co. hold more than 90 percent of their domestic market, but are tiny globally despite long-standing pledges to do more overseas as Japan's beer market slows.
If AB InBev and SABMiller are successful in their proposed marriage, then it will present Japanese brewers with an even more formidable global competitor.