A better-than-expected trading update had investors in SABMiller toasting their good fortune as the share price recovered from a recent dip to close the week at R655.56. The share price of the world's second-biggest brewer is now 24% higher than it was a year ago.Analysts believe the strong performance is due largely to expectations of a mega merger with the world's largest beer producer, AB-Inbev.But aside from that, SABMiller's ability to produce good performances consistently, particularly from its emerging market operations, has played a large part in the share's strong rating.After the update, a few analysts hiked their target price for SABMiller, testimony to its strong performance.JP Morgan lifted its target to R715.30, suggesting nearly 10% upside from its current level.Numis Securities also retained its "buy" rating, and hiked its target price to R733.18 - but said, according to news reports, that this was "predicated on the view that SABMiller is an industry consolidation target".Opinion remains divided, however, with 11 analysts having a "buy" on the stock, compared with sevenwho claim it's a "sell", and another 16 who remain on the fence and call it a "hold".The strong share price move - it gained 2.1% this week after the trading update - suggests investors were able to overlook the negative effect of translating weaker emerging market currencies, such as the rand, into SABMiller's reporting currency, the US dollar.So even though the brewer's net producer revenue would have grown 4% had currencies remained stable, the surge in the dollar meant this revenue figure was actually 2% lower than the previous year.For the March quarter, the South African beer business was a significant contributor to the strong performance.Despite sluggish local economic conditions, South African Breweries, which is now included in SABMiller Africa, managed to increase beer volumes and record a 9% increase in revenue for the quarter, thanks partly to modest price increases and strong trading ahead of Easter.Zimbabwe was the only poor performer in the three months, with its revenue down 5% due to what the company unhelpfully described as the country's "economic environment".SABMiller's trading update, which is issued about four weeks ahead of the results, relates only to volumes and contains no actual value figures. Still, there were enough key features of this week's update to pique investors' interest - particularly the fact that total beverage volumes grew 1% for the 12 months to March, alongside the 4% rise in net producer revenue.The update also highlighted the importance of emerging markets to the brewer's portfolio.In the three months to March, Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific were again the star performers. By contrast, Europe showed no growth in net producer revenue in that period and North America actually shrank by 1%.The strong performance in South Africa as well as a recovery in lager volume growth in China helped to lift group volumes 2% in the fourth quarter to end-March.The increase in revenue per hectolitre reflects productivity improvement as well as the premiumisation of its lager sales, particularly in China.But the outstanding performance came from soft drinks in all of SABMiller's markets - with Africa and Latin America again getting special mention.An 8% increase in soft drinks volumes for the full year helped to compensate for the unchanged beer sales and pushed total beverage volume growth up by 1%.Judging by the trading update also issued this week by spirits group Diageo, consumers in emerging markets preferred beer and soft drinks to spirits in the first three months of this year. Diageo, the world's largest distiller, reported a 0.7% revenue drop in the March quarter...