(Brussels, BELGIUM) – AB-InBev reported its Q1 earnings on Wednesday.



Reuters reports that AB-InBev’s global sales decline of 0.4% is the first sales decline for the company since Q3 2009. That said, revenues continue to rise for the company as it increases prices across its portfolio. Profit and EPS increases were around 30% showing that the company continues to improve its operating efficiency.

Below is an excerpt of management’s comments on performance in the United States. The full earnings press release can be found here.

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In the United States:

• Volumes: High levels of unemployment, especially amongst core consumers, continue to affect overall beer industry volumes. We continue to believe that a recovery in the US economy is a question of when and not if. In the meantime we will remain focused on building the health of our brands and driving forward with all our major initiatives. Own beer shipments in the quarter declined by 3.3% while sales-to-retailers (STRs) declined at a slower rate of 2.2%

• Bud Light growth: The brand health of the Bud Light mega brand continues to improve and the gap to competitors is widening. We estimate that the market share of the mega brand grew by 11 bp in 1Q11, driven by the core 21-27 year-old consumer group. The Bud Light brand led the market share gain, with sales-to-retailers growing in the quarter, driven by the successful “Here We Go” campaign, and further supported by our sponsorship of the Super Bowl and UFC. Our digital campaign is also becoming a more important part of our marketing mix. Looking forward, we will leverage the brand’s sponsorship of the NFL, which started on 1 April and was activated with the NFL Player Draft on 28 April 2011

• Budweiser stabilization: The brand showed more encouraging indicators in the first quarter following the implementation of the new marketing strategy, including the launch of the “Grab Some Buds” campaign and the Concentration Week in September 2010. The brand was also helped by our price strategy to narrow the gap between our sub-premium and premium brands. Brand health continued to show signs of improvement and share declines continued to decelerate, from 60 bp during 1Q10 to 40 bp in 1Q11. Our long term commitment to stabilizing the brand in the US remains

• High end growth: Our share of this segment grew in the quarter. Our shipment volumes increased by 22.1% with sales-to-retailers (STRs) up 13.3%. Stella Artois and Shock Top led the way with STR growth of 19.4% and 58.2%, respectively. In March, we announced the acquisition of Goose Island, reinforcing our commitment to grow our share of this profitable and attractive segment

• Price segmentation: In 4Q10, we started to narrow the price gap between our subpremium and premium brands. However, the gap is still larger than we see in other consumer goods categories and we will continue to work on reducing it as appropriate. Optimizing price positioning across our whole portfolio remains an area of focus