Leading Japanese brewer Asahi Breweries Ltd. said Wednesday it posted a net profit of 13.62 billion yen in its business year to Dec. 31, helped partly by its entry into the "happoshu" market last February.

The consolidated performance compared with a net loss of 15.71 billion yen a year earlier. The previous year's loss -- the company's first since its founding in 1949 -- was due partly to writeoffs of latent losses in securities holdings.

In 2001, its group also posted a pretax profit of 60.66 billion yen, up 372.2 percent from a year earlier, on sales of 1.43 trillion yen, up 2.4 percent.