China: Beer market will likely decline again in 2025, Carlsberg CEO

China’s beer market will likely decline again in 2025, Carlsberg CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen was quoted as saying by Yahoo Finance.

Beer volumes in China fell around 5% in the first nine months of the year, according to Carlsberg, which reported flat unit sales in the country during the period.

In an interview, Aarup-Andersen said Carlsberg was “quite pleased” with its “positive outperformance” but indicated the company expected another year when China's beer market contracted.

“This year, the market in China will be down quite significantly, as you've seen so far. Next year, we do expect the market to perform a bit better but we are not expecting the market to go into positive growth. We do expect the market to decline next year also but our base case is that it will be a little bit better than this year,” he said.

China has attempted to boost the overall economy and consumption with a series of so-called stimulus packages. So far, there has been no impact on spending, Aarup-Andersen said.

“The big variance on that current estimate is it really depends on how the Chinese authorities act over the next couple of months. If they are going to go for bigger and more impactful stimulus, then it could impact the market versus what we've seen this year. Let's see. Our focus in China is on driving our own strategy. We have a big strategy around driving especially into the big cities and that will continue no matter what happens in the market.”

Aarup-Andersen was speaking after Carlsberg reported its third-quarter and nine-month sales figures on October 31.

Nine-month revenues rose 3% on an organic basis, with volumes up 0.8%.

In the third quarter, revenue grew 1.3% organically but underlying volumes dipped 0.2%.

“It was a tough quarter, impacted by a challenging consumer environment and weather. Nevertheless, we delivered volume and revenue growth in the majority of our markets, although lower volumes in China, France and the UK impacted overall group performance,” Aarup-Andersen said.

In France, Carlsberg’s market share fell in a declining beer category. Aarup-Andersen said the brewer had been affected by its moves on price.

“The market is down this year, which is not a surprise, of course, to anyone. The other element is it's quite clear that we took a bit more price than our competitors did going into the year and the competitive reaction has been a little bit tougher than we had originally expected,” he said.

“Going into ‘25, it’s too early to say. Of course, we're not going to talk about different strategies around price and value management in general but there's no doubt that the strength of our brands is undiminished in France. We see a very high brand equity around our key brands there and therefore I think we will be adjusting some of our strategies and some of our relationships and partnerships.”

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