Heineken is clearly suffering from the corona crisis, which is hitting beer sales hard. The company recorded a loss of 300 million euros in the first half of this year. In addition, the brewer made a write-off of 550 million euros, according to a provisional trade update.
The brewer saw its turnover fall by 16.4 percent in the first half of this year. The company not only sold less beer, but also at a lower price. Beer volumes fell by 11.5 percent.
Due to the uncertainties, Heineken previously withdrew its full-year forecast. Despite the “short-term challenges”, the company remains confident about the future. Since the low point in April, when catering closures and other measures to contain the virus were in force, recovery has already been going on, according to the brewer. In June, Heineken noticed that customers started to replenish their stocks.
Heineken was hit hardest in North and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in terms of declining beer volumes. This was partly because public life in large sales markets such as Mexico and South Africa went completely flat. The markets in Asia again showed some recovery, with major beer country Vietnam leading the way.
The Heineken brand performed relatively well with a 2.5 percent decrease. Heineken 0.0 grew double digits. The alcohol-free variant is particularly popular in Mexico and the United States.
In order to weather the crisis, Heineken took measures to reduce costs in the first half of the year. Including cutting expenditure on digitization and marketing. According to Heineken, the process of further reducing costs has not yet come to an end without going into details. In any case, there will be no reorganisations until the end of the year.
The company will release final figures on August 3.
Lesley Woutersen, one of the co-founders of the EconomicInform gives away all of his free time to the project. He is interested in stock exchange and digital assets. Lesley can be reached by lesley.woutersen@economicinform.com.
