Danish brewing giant Carlsberg Group has reported a 4% decrease in its net revenue to DKK17.53bn ($2.57bn) for the third quarter of this year, compared to DKK18.3bn ($2.7bn) for the same period in 2015.
The brewer blamed the negative currency impact and the acquisition impact related to the sales of Danish Malting Group and Carlsberg Malawi for the decline.
The Carlsberg brand recorded a 7% volume growth with better sales coming from Russia, Ukraine and India.
The company's Tuborg brand had a volume growth by 10% following sustained growth in Asia, particularly in India and China as well as under license in Turkey.
In Western Europe, Carlsberg’s net revenue in Q3 2016 fell 6% to DKK10.4bn ($1.54bn) from DKK11bn ($1.63bn) in the same period last year.
Eastern Europe gave the company better results in the quarter, with net revenue growing by 5% to DKK3.14bn ($466m) from DKK3.01bn ($447m) in Q3 2015.
In Asia, there was a slide of 6% with Q3 2016 net revenue dropping to DKK4bn ($594m) from DKK4.2bn ($623m) in the same period in 2015.
Carlsberg CEO Cees ‘t Hart said: “We’re satisfied with our Q3 results. Our value management approach, which targets the optimal balance between market share, gross margin and earnings, continues to progress well.
"In addition, our Eastern European business delivered a good set of results in the quarter, ahead of our expectations.
“Consequently, we upgrade our 2016 earnings expectations. We continue to see good momentum across the organisation in Funding the Journey and good progress in the operationalisation of the SAIL’22 priorities in our business plans for 2017 and future years.”
Despite the overall drop in net revenue in Q3, the company has upgraded its 2016 earnings expectation, anticipating its organic operating profit growth to be around 5%. It also said that it is expecting a translation impact of DKK-550m ($81.7m) in 2016.
