NETHERLANDS – Beer volumes for Heineken, the second largest beer company in the world, grew by 6.9% in 2022 thanks to a sharp recovery of Asia Pacific in the second half of the year, the reopening of the on-trade in Europe in the first half.

The Amsterdam, Netherlands-based company sold 231.2 million hectoliters (mhl) in 2022, of which 63.2 million hectoliters were sold in the forth quarter alone.

Premium brands led by the globally renowned Heineken brand which outperformed the total beer market to report a 12.5% growth versus last year (14.5% excluding Russia) and 31.5% relative to 2019.

Amstel grew volume in the mid-twenties, with more than 15 markets growing double-digits, with a particularly strong performance in Brazil and continued momentum behind Amstel Ultra.

Birra Moretti grew in the mid-teens versus last year, sharing the true taste of Italy across Europe, with outstanding growth in the Netherlands, Serbia, Romania, Switzerland and Ireland.

Beyond beer brings new opportunities

With demand for beer waning in many geographies, Heineken has been hedging the risks by investing in new categories beyond the beer aisle and this is delivering results as per the 2022 financial year results.

Desperados, one of the leading brands in the category doubling its volume in Nigeria, with continued growth in Europe (particularly in Germany, the UK, Spain and France.

The company also saw success in the cider category with global volume reaching 5.0 million hectolitres (2021: 4.9 million), mainly driven by the strong growth of Strongbow in South Africa.

“Our overall volume of flavoured beer and beyond beer alcoholic propositions grew by a mid-single-digit to 12.9 million hectolitres (2021: 12.3 million hectolitres),” Heineken said.

To reach more customers, the company continued to deploy its business-to-business digital (eB2B) platforms, and by end of 2022 it was able to capture €9.2 billion in gross merchandise value, 2.5x the value of last year.

Revenue exceed US$36B

With growth remaining robust during the year, Heineken managed to record an impressive 19.1 organic growth in revenue to €34,676 million (about US$36.865 billion).

Net revenue (beia) increased by 21.2% organically to €28.694 billion (30.50 billion) , with total consolidated volume growing by 6.4% and net revenue (beia) per hectolitre up 13.9%.

The underlying price mix on a constant geographic basis was up 14.3%, driven by pricing for inflation and by premiumization.

“We delivered balanced growth as we priced responsibly, made a further step in our productivity programme and continued to invest in our brands and capabilities,” said Dolf Van den Brink, Heineken CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board .

For the coming year, Van den Brink noted that the global economic outlook will remain challenging but remained optimistic on his company’s ability to deliver on its goals.

“We will continue to invest, whilst staying disciplined on pricing and costs. Our outlook, as shared on 30 November 2022, remains unchanged.”

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