The Philippine beverage group San Miguel Corp has seen its domestic beer sales leap 13% between January and May this year, to 12.7 billion pesos (US$238m).

Volumes of beer sold in the period were up 11% to 62.4m cases.

Beer sales in May alone were up 15% reaching 2.68 billion pesos, on volumes up 12% to 13.2m cases.

The company accounted for the rise by pointing to more aggressive sales and distribution activities.

"Brisk sales and lower production costs due to favourable raw material prices enhanced the division's profit performance," San Miguel said.