New South Wales is set to surpass SA as Coopers Brewery's biggest market, after another record year Tim Cooper of Coopers Brewery in Adelaide after Annual results showing strong growth despite flat beer market. Tim Cooper with Sapporo, Carlsberg and Kronenbourg cartons. AFTER years, if not decades of being South Australia's best kept secret, Coopers Brewery's beer sales in its home state are set to be outstripped by those in New South Wales. In what was another record year for Coopers, sales grew 4.7 per cent last calendar year, to 72 million litres of beer. South Australia was still the largest market, with 26.9 per cent of sales, but with NSW just behind on 26 per cent, managing director Tim Cooper said it was all but inevitable that SA would be overtaken. "It's amazing when you talk to the sales reps, they're still seeing publicans (in NSW) who are saying they've never had someone from Coopers come to visit them," Dr Cooper said.. There are areas where we're still growing distribution so that will continue to play a role. As the total volume gets bigger the percentage from South Australia is going down. The demographics are a little bit against us in South Australia. Coopers has grown its beer sales volume by a staggering 76 per cent since 2004, the year before Lion Nathan tried to take the company over in a $420 million takeover bid. Dr Cooper said about half of the past year's sales growth came from the international brands Carlsberg and Sapporo which it produces under contract. A significant portion of our growth for 2013 can be attributed to our international beer portfolio, as well as good growth from the mid-strength Coopers Mild Ale. Strong sales in Pale Ale and Sparkling Ale also drove the volume increase," he said. The company had an excellent December with almost 400,000 cases of Pale Ale, and 100,000 cases of sparkling sold in that month alone. December 2013 was our highest selling month on record, with 8.55 million litres of beer sold. This was 13 per cent more than the previous record month in December 2012," Dr Cooper said. Coopers has enjoyed average growth of more than 9.8 per cent per year for the past 20 years and now represents more than 4.5 per cent of the total Australian beer market. The second bottling line, opened in December, will provide greater flexibility and efficiencies, and set ourselves for further growth. For the six months to December 31 2013, Coopers' sales grew by 6.3 per cent over the previous corresponding period. International brands increased in volume by 157 per cent, and Mild Ale by 25 per cent. Dr Cooper said the company was aiming for 5 per cent volume growth this year. Coopers increased its dividend payout to its 143 shareholders last financial year, paying them $14.7 million. Dr Cooper said the company had performed well and it was decided to pass some of that on to shareholders.