The profit of Carlsberg in the first half of the year exceeded forecasts, despite the decline in output, due to the demand of consumers for more expensive beers. At the same time, the reduction in costs allowed the Danish brewing company to continue investing in a strategy aimed at selling more expensive beers.
In 2015, Carlsberg launched a seven-year strategic plan called SAIL'22, hoping to ensure organic sales growth and margin improvement by balancing the increase in output and the sale of more profitable products.
"Our good financial results allow us to accelerate investments in priority areas of SAIL'22 to stimulate the sustainable long-term growth of the Carlsberg Group," the company's CEO Siz'ta Heart said in a statement.
The profit margin of the group improved in the first half of the year by 2 percentage points to 13 percent.
According to Carlsberg, the Russian beer market declined by 5% in the first half of the year, due to the ban on the sale of beer in the polymer consumer packaging (PET-tare) of more than 1.5 liters, as well as the difficult conditions of the consumer market.
The semi-annual operating profit, excluding special items of the balance sheet, increased by almost 20 percent year-on-year to DKK 4.13 billion ($ 652 million), exceeding the averaged forecast of analysts polled by Reuters at 3.92 billion kroons.
The company has upheld its forecast for 2017, which implies an organic growth in operating profit of 4-6 percent, and said that the positive impact of changes in exchange rates is expected to be 50 million kroons, whereas previously it was said about 300 million.
Today, the stock market in Denmark finished trading with a decline amid negative dynamics from the consumer goods, healthcare, and chemical industries.
At the time of closing at the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, OMX Copenhagen 20 decreased by 0.22%.