Brewers hike beer price
The good news first: Belgian brewers sold more beer in 2014. The volume growth in 2014, although not spectacular, could run into several thousands of hl, the Belgian magazine Trends reported on 28 January 2014. The increase in volumes should not be surprising at first sight because 2013 was a bad year, with a very long and cold winter and spring. On the other hand the summer months of July and August 2014 were very wet and often cold.
Still, AB-InBev last year managed to sell more beer, registering an estimated 4.5 million hl. Its top brands are Jupiler, by a wide margin, followed by Leffe and Stella Artois, says Trends.
The brewer may also have been lucky that there was a Football World Cup last year, with a Belgian team taking part. In June, the brewer saw volumes climb, but in July, the fun was over. Incidentally, the Belgian team played its final match on 5 July. In that month, volumes declined for AB InBev.
August was even worse. It saw consumption decline by about 15 percent compared with 2013, a year with an excellent summer.
However, AB-InBev’s Belgian sales ended up a few thousand hl above 2013 sales. And that is remarkable, says Trends, because earlier in January 2015 the Belgian market leader announced a price increase for lager. That’s the bad news. From 1 February, AB-InBev charges EUR 0.02 extra per glass. Declining volumes were quoted as the reason.
It is true, says Trends, beer consumption in Belgium has been declining for years. Between 2000 and 2014 there were only three years with rising beer consumption: 2003, 2011 and 2014. Over the period AB-InBev saw its beer sales decline to perhaps 4.5 million hl in 2014 from 5.6 million hl in 2000. The long-term trend is indeed down. But last year the volume sold grew.
That the beer market falls or rises, depending on the fortunes of its market leader, says a lot about the strong position of AB-InBev, concludes Trends. AB-InBev controls about 56 percent of the Belgian market. The number two, Alken-Maes, has approximately 12 percent. Why does it not come as a surprise that Alken-Maes, owned by Dutch Heineken, has also announced beer price increases from February?
On another note, the German trade publication INSIDE reported that in January 2015, AB-InBev’s CEO Carlos Brito exercised a share option, buying 128,927 AB-InBev-shares for EUR 4.3 million. He immediately sold them for EUR 13 million. That netted him EUR 8.7 million in the course of a week.
