Investing.com -- Heineken's beer sales outpaced expectations in the January-March period and grew on a year-on-year basis for the first time in a year, leading the world's second-biggest brewer to back its outlook for 2024 profit growth.
Beer volumes jumped by 4.7% organically in the first quarter, the Dutch firm said on Wednesday, above an uptick of 2.5% anticipated by a company-provided poll of analysts. Consumer demand was under pressure over much of 2023 after the business moved to increase prices for its products in a bid to offset higher input costs.
"[W]e had an encouraging start to 2024. All regions grew volume and net revenue, and we continued to see a sequential improvement in the performance of the business," said Chief Executive Officer Dolf van den Brink in a statement.
An earlier Easter holiday and "cycling negative one-off effects from last year" boosted Heineken (AS:HEIN)'s performance during the quarter, van den Brink added. Group revenue increased by 7.2% to 8.18 billion euros.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley flagged that while this was a "good start to the year" for Heineken, the one-off impacts and softer comparable sales in Vietnam and Nigeria mean that they do not "expect this magnitude of volume growth for the year as a whole."
Heineken left its guidance for 2024 unchanged, with operating income still expected to rise organically in the low- to high-single-digit. However, van den Brink flagged that the firm "see[s] the economic environment as challenging and uncertain."
In a note to clients, analysts at Bank of America said they anticipate that Heineken's "positive volume momentum" will continue, adding that they project "upside" to consensus forecasts this year.
Shares in Heineken were marginally higher in mid-day European trading.