With Carlsberg losing Russia, the Danish brewer’s net profit plunged nearly 5.5 billion euros below zero. Still, the outlook for 2024 is said to look positive.
“Strong platform for growth”
Carlsberg sales grew 4.7 % last year, to 73.59 billion Danish kroner (9.9 billion euros). That was slightly more than expected, but entirely due to price increases. As a matter of fact, volume dropped by half a per cent.
The situation varies greatly from market to market: in Asia, organic volume grew 3.7 %, while in Western Europe there was a 2.3 % drop. As a result, CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen concludes that Carlsberg has “a strong platform” for further growth.
Russian loss
The brewery group will continue to focus on premium beers and on Asia in the coming years. To do so, it is even willing to increase sales and marketing investments by more than 10 %. In 2024, Carlsberg expects inflation to decrease and organic growth in operating profit to grow 1 to 5 %.
2023 ended with a net loss of 40.77 billion Danish kroner (5.5 billion euros), largely because of write-downs in Russia. The government seized Carlsberg’s Russian operations last year and opposition to it seems to have done little good. On the contrary, a Russian court also revoked intellectual property rights last month.
