I totally agree that the great growth of Beaujolais occurred after 1951 -- and of course it's been quite a marketing event for a number of years.
The last marketing statistics I've seen were for 2002 from CFCE, 25.5 million bottles. The breakdown by market was:
11 million in France, 2.3 million in Paris.
7.1 million in Japan.
4 million in the US.
The UK was seventh, with 0.5 million bottles.
Of course, I wasn't there to count the bottles, so these numbers may be far from accurate. :-)
Regards, Bob