Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Philippe Guetta, Chairman and CEO of Henrique ArAsia, and I'm delighted to welcome you to this Panerica Resier call. 2 years ago, I shared with you how we began implementing our Transform and Accelerate strategic plan to drive profitable and sustainable long term growth in Asia. Over the past 2 years, this plan has been the backbone of our strategy, while our team relentlessly focused their efforts on making the organization more agile and on gaining operational efficiency.
Thanks to this clear road map, we have had a unique advantage of being already advanced on our business transformation when COVID-nineteen hit. Today, I'm proud to tell you that despite the pandemic and the many uncertainties we've had to navigate through, our business is resilient, rebounding and continuing its transformation. Throughout this time, we have adjusted our short term strategy to capitalize on home consumption, worked hard to expand new route to market, such as e commerce and direct to consumers and further consolidated our leadership in markets. We did all this while preparing ourselves for the future, strengthening our long term commitment on innovation, digital transformation and Sustainability and Responsibility. The work to quickly adapt to this changing context while staying externally focused has led to solid results despite the pandemic.
We have delivered a dynamic growth of plus 10% in Asia, the 1st 9 months of FY 2021, led by China and North Asia, a remarkable rebound versus FY 2020. We achieved this while keeping costs under strict control with stringent enforcement of group operating highlights. All of this was delivered while we made further progress on our transformation initiatives to better prepare ourselves for the future in the new normal. Let me now take you through our business performance in Asia's key markets and how we're making progress on our transformation. Let's start with China, one of our 4 global must win markets, where our efforts to lead category growth is starting to bear fruit with a record year for our business.
Affirmingly, we are halfway to our 2018 ambition as market leader to double the Western SARS period's penetration 2% in alcohol market by 2025. While COVID-nineteen has strongly impacted the industry and our business in FY 2020, Our performance in FY 2021 is rebounding fast and decisively at plus 34% year to date, surpassing our record year in 2019. Growth is broad based behind strong consumer sentiment and domestic consumption with Martell, Chivas Regal and The Glenlivet leading the way. With the increase of low energy and home consumption, we also took the opportunity to significantly grow our e commerce and premium and trade channels. Let's dive into the 4 battlegrounds which allow us to deliver such solid growth.
First, we are reinforcing Martel's status as the number one cognac brand while broadening geographies and target markets. Martell is a powerhouse of our Panerica China business and has continued to strengthen its leadership position with high double digit growth in the 1st 3 quarters for this fiscal. We reinforce our focus on 2 key consumption occasions, premium meals and parties, and strengthen our route to market and geographical footprint to deliver the business. On premium locations, we have developed Gourmet Theater, a series of immersive Martell pop up restaurants and started meaningful partnership with Michelin Guide and China's own Black Pearl Restaurants Guide to increase Marta's visibility and relevance in the dining occasion. We have also captured over 9,000 weddings and banquets and anchor's market position as a reference for such celebratory occasions.
On the product front, we have launched new private parties in leading and iconic nightclubs in light of changing consumer preferences for smaller, more intimate gatherings and launched the new Martin Noblesse campaign featuring celebrity Chen Kun and key fashion designer Angel Chen to demonstrate the brand's position on Audacity. Furthermore, we have achieved our extremely successful launch of ultra prestige cognac Martell XXO, which will strengthen further in the coming year. Both efforts are allowing us to recruit new consumers and continue to fuel the base of Maison Martin. On the route to market front, we have deepened our distribution in the living restaurants and the traditional store of Tier 3, Tier 4 Cities in the South and East regions, while increasing penetration into the West region to reach more affluent consumers. Our position on Martell has never been stronger, and we expect sustainable long term profitable growth, further premiumizations and more consumer recruitment moving forward.
The 2nd battleground is to leverage our whisky portfolio to gain value share. According to the IWSR report, Whiskey is the 2nd biggest Western style spirits category in China with half the size of cognac, though. It has been growing at half the pace of cognac For the past 5 years, we are fully capitalizing on the dynamic whisky portfolio with the priority of Chees' Regal, Ballantine's, The Glenlivet and Royal Salut to play and grow share across price segments. Business to date is at strong double digit top line growth, and we have been gaining share both in blended and Singapore Scotch. We are successfully rejuvenating Chivas among millennials as a new trendy lifestyle brand.
Strong equity improvement is delivered among the €25,000,000 to €34,000,000 segment, thanks to more relevant content and activation, which led to high double digit growth. Even more encouragingly, The Glenlivet is close to doubling its business this year as we launched the new original by tradition campaign and have further expanded distribution on trade. The goal is to drive the Glendly bit disproportionately above the segment's growth and convert young urban professionals aspiring for craft and authenticity directly into malt whiskey. Whiskey will remain a key growth rally for Panrika China to diversify our portfolio and gain share in markets. 3rd, we are accelerating on e commerce to capture more than fair share of this channel growth.
Top line is at strong double digit gain with value growing 1.3x versus volume, Thanks to positive product mix. These strong results are delivered behind improved CRM strategy, stronger media effectiveness, relevant and exclusive product to the channel and strategic partnership with key marketplaces, such our category captaincies with Timor in the whisky category. We have therefore gained 3 points volume share in the channel, thanks to Marcell, of course, but also Ballantine's, Absolute and our 1 portfolio. Most recently, Panrika China has been awarded the price of innovation in consumer operation by Tmall. Finally, we are accelerating our direct to consumer approach in China by building an omnichannel conviviality retail ecosystem, integrating retail, experience, consumption and consumer engagement.
We have launched 3 direct to consumer retail experiences in the last 18 months. These include Drinks and Co, the omni channel platform and retail in Qingtandi in Shanghai Spirit of T Site in Xiamen and Dongguan and La Tourie Martel in Shenzhen and Sanya in Hainan, which brings to life Beazer Martel's heritage and savoir faire. These experiences have strengthened our ability to reach consumers directly, create customized, rich experiences and products. This will serve to deepen consumer relationship while building brand equity and category long term. Let's bring you now to Duinsengco.
Encouragingly, La Culay Marthe, flagship store, is exceeding all expectation, and we have strong ambition to expand this successful business model to more cities in China. Let's bring you now to La Tourie Martel. Beyond retail, We are also strengthening LUSEC, our prestige platform, built in response to the growing demand from high net worth consumers for rare and collectible products. Leveraging the platform, we have increased the sales of our luxury portfolio in line with the company's performance in the 1st 9 months, and we'll continue to create strong products and experiences for these growing segments. To conclude on China, we're extremely proud of this amazing rebound and continued growth of the business.
As a market leader, We keep recruiting consumers to expand the total consumption pool of the Western style spirits category. We remain confident to continue driving profitable growth for our brands and the industry. Let's now move to North Asia markets, where we are seeing robust and satisfying results. In the Taiwan market, the pilot win made in 2018 to prioritize strong consumer centric brands and returning investment mode in both media and route to market He's delivering strong double digit volume and net sales growth with solid market share gains in the whisky segment this year. Awareness and consideration are growing for both our star brands, The Glenlivet and Royal Salute.
We're also very pleased to see the great success of the sherry cask range innovation for The Glenlivet, which is now accounting for more than half of the brand's sales value. With this strong momentum, we now aim to challenge leadership in this sizable and trendsetting whiskey market. In Korea, the strategy to focus on international strategic brands is also starting to be a front. Despite continued disruption in the on trade, the pandemics accelerated development of the off trade channel, which is now dominant in our business. We have significantly increased a borderline investment behind key brands with a want to meet a single campaign to boost Valentine's malls, accelerated the Royal Salut ad platform and conducted the very promising launch of Absolut Juice Strawberry.
We are also further investing behind our growth release, in particular Malibu, with the summer campaign and the When is Topoque, It's Malibu initiative to capture the sizable opportunity of Milocation. Thanks to all these initiatives. I'm very happy to report a strong double digit growth so far this fiscal year. Market condition in Japan remained the most challenging within North Asia with the national state of emergency resulting in non trade declines. This has particularly affected the blended Scotch portfolio, leading to a mid single digit decline of overall net sales.
However, profitability is on par with expectations, Thanks to the successful expansion strategy behind Perrigoet, The Glenlivet and Jemez. We have also gained value share in our battle ground, particularly in prestige and ultra premium champagne, thanks to a successful strategy led by dissolution expansion and increased activations. We have also grown the Glenlivet and Jameson, thanks to increased off trade activation that more than offset the on trade declines. In the midterm, we remain optimistic on Japan and on what the team can deliver in this attractive market. We are continuing to invest in brands and tools in Japan, and this is best seen in our partnership with Kinobi, Kyoto Drygene, which we have already started to launch and activate in most Asian markets.
We have also launched an advanced marketing mix analytics tool in Japan, which we expect will help us improve sales and brand equity in an informed way in the coming years. Let's move to South Asia, where we are seeing more challenges due to the pandemic. India is experiencing the hardest hit of COVID-nineteen in Asia, and my heart goes out to all the people of this beautiful country who are facing unprecedented difficulties, sometimes including loss of their loved ones. The recent surge of cases has been imposing tough challenge to our employees and the industry. But our team has been resilient in maintaining the continuity of the business while offering care and support to the communities in which we operate.
To date, we have manufactured and donated 100,000 bottles of hand sanitizers to the government, invested EUR 1,500,000 for community support. Thanks to the agility of our team in India, we have quickly adapted to ensure a safe working environment in our operations. And despite a short suspension, we have maintained continuity and seamlessly logistics throughout the year. The hard work has paid off with a modest growth in Q2 at plus 2%. And in Q3, we were back to double digit growth, demonstrating the true resilience of our business.
Let's have a look at some of the dynamic brand activation the team has achieved this year while overcoming these challenges. To prepare for the future, Progress has also been made on transformational strategies around sustainability and responsibility and route to market transformation in India. In 2019, we became a net water positive company, recharging 1.2 times more groundwater than we consume for the business. By reusing our recycling water with the new rainwater harvesting system, we have successfully decreased total water consumption by 54% since 2015. This is a meaningful contribution to our SNR agenda, and it's just one of the many examples of our commitments to a greener, Most Sustainable Future in Panorica Asia.
On the route to market front, we have launched one of the group's key digital program, Asia, collects and analyzes real time data, which allows our sales team to make more informed and insight driven decisions in the field. To conclude on India, while the short term business is challenging, India, without doubt, remains a very strategic market. It is home to the largest youth population in the world, with 25,000,000 people of legal drinking age entering the market every year. Urbanization and the digital revolution is accelerating, improving our ability to reach more of these young and young adult consumers who are increasingly willing to experience premium brands. Taking advantage of our strong number one value position in India, we are best placed to seize the huge long term opportunity of this fascinating market as we prepare for the future and continuously transform our organization.
In conclusion, we continue to be excited and extremely driven by the huge opportunity in Asia, which we are fully prepared to capture. This region is the home for 80% of the new emerging middle class in the world. With Western SaaS Spirits being only a very small part of the profitable business in the alcohol category, We are benefiting from a large conversion pool of consumers. We're increasingly keen to enjoy our brands and experiences. As a category leader, we're determined to accelerate this growth and gain disproportionate share in the process.
Our strong portfolio across the brown and white spirits, Our vast and competitive route to market and the unshakable engagement and pride of our team will be our competitive advantage for growth. Our commitment in Asia is long term and strategic, and this is best seen in our investment to build the first ever iconic ball distillery in China. 2 years after the announcement of the project, I'm thrilled to tell you that our distillery is on track for completion this summer and will open in autumn. This will mark an important milestone in our regional strategic roadmap and will further strengthen our footprint in the region as we continue growing our business. I look forward to welcoming you to the distillery soon.
I'm convinced you will share my enthusiasm and confidence when you see the distillery for yourselves. Thank you.