Beer Group President And Anadolu Efes CEO Onur Altürk Commented

This quarter was shaped by a highly dynamic environment, yielding a mix of challenges in some markets and notable successes in others. While our consolidated performance came in slightly below expectations, we remain committed to our long-term strategy. Throughout the period, we faced significant external pressures, including economic downturns, high-inflationary environment, geopolitical uncertainties, and slowing consumer demand. However, our persistent focus on operational excellence, adaptability, and market execution enabled us to sustain strong momentum even in this challenging operating landscape. Therefore, we were able to deliver TL 62,195.2 million consolidated revenue in 3Q2024 while the EBITDA (BNRI) margin came at 21.1%.

The beer group’s volume performance maintained its strong momentum, achieving significant growth of 5.7%. This period marks the 6th consecutive quarter where we were able to grow our volumes in beer group. On the other hand, our soft drink operations faced a challenging quarter, with soft performances in Türkiye and Pakistan affected by macroeconomic downturns and lower consumer sentiment.

Our Russian operations continued the successful volume growth momentum, benefiting from the resilience of the Russian beer industry during this period. All segments in our portfolio recorded growth, with the exception of the value segment, contributing positively to overall profitability. With the strong volume growth, price increases, and a favorable brand mix, profitability in Russia improved compared to the first two quarters of the year.

In Türkiye, the positive momentum we had in the first half of the year softened slightly in the third quarter, as anticipated, due to reduced consumer spending driven by hyperinflation and economic uncertainty. However, the decline was very mild, largely due to our strategic efforts to accelerate penetration in social events and expand our portfolio into new categories, enabling us to mitigate the market challenges.

I would also like to highlight an important development for our business. As recently announced, we have signed a new agreement with our partner AB InBev regarding the acquisition of AB InBev’s stake in the Russian business and the transfer of Anadolu Efes' interest in the Ukrainian business to AB InBev. The completion of this transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, and the business continues its operations as usual.

Following the completion of the nine months of the year, we have revisited our full-year guidance for 2024. While we have raised our topline expectations for the beer group, we also reflected the challenging market conditions in our soft drink business. In beer group, international operations’ profitability margin has improved versus first half yet softer than expected, which led us to revise our margin decline expectation to the lower end of our guidance range. However, thanks to robust topline growth, we still anticipate nominal EBITDA performance to significantly exceed our initial expectations. Despite the headwinds we face in 2024, I stay confident in our long-term strategy to achieve sustainable and profitable growth through superior execution capabilities and the strength of our product portfolio. By leveraging opportunities across our operating regions, we are in a good position to create lasting value for all our stakeholders.