AB-InBev’s net profit declines in second quarter 2015

Have a guess: Which is AB-InBev’s fastest growing brand in the United States?

Despite all the publicity the world’s number one brewer got from its recent purchases of craft breweries, it’s not a craft beer brand.

As Caroline Levy, an analyst with global investment banking firm CLSA, noted in a report, craft beers represent only 2 percent of AB-InBev’s U.S. sales.

By individual brands, the company’s Shock Top is about 1 percent of sales and Goose Island is less than half a percent. AB-InBev’s “’Ritas” drinks have “lost steam” as well, Ms Levy writes.

Making up 63 percent of the company’s sales are its premium brands. In that category is AB-InBev’s fastest-growing brand, Michelob Ultra, which grew 18 percent in the most recent four-week period, Ms Levy writes.

AB-InBev’s net profit fell to USD 1.9 billion in the three months to the end of June 2015 from USD 2.8 billion a year earlier, missing analysts’ estimates. To investors’ consternation, in the second quarter, U.S. sales volumes declined 555,000 hl, and AB-InBev’s signature Budweiser brand continued to lose U.S. market share too.