mthoopsfan said:
The company has numerous brands of beer and business, but Bud Light sales are in the tank.
"Bud Light controversy cost parent company about $395 million in lost US sales. The world's largest brewer is counting the costs of being swept into a controversy over Bud Light in the United States. AB InBev said Thursday that US revenue fell 10% in the second quarter as sales of its top brand slumped. Aug 3, 2023"
CNN.com
https://www.cnn.com › 2023/08/03 › business › anheuse...
This 395 stat is misleading because I believe it covers more than the time since the boycott. Period to period declines of Bud Light sales are about 30% in most periods. I think BL is screwed.
I know that you probably know more about these things than I do, but I gotta disagree here. Even at $395 million in lost sales, it doesn't even dent them. That number SOUNDS big, sure, but their total sales in the 12 months leading up to 6/30/2023 was $59.091 BILLION. Meaning that the loss of that $395 million was less than 1% of yearly sales. I doubt InBev even cares.
As for Bud Light, a quote from another CNN Business article -- "Sales for the week leading into Memorial Day weekend fell 23.9% from the same period a year ago. That constitutes a slight improvement compared to the week prior when sales were 25.7% lower than a year earlier. That could indicate that the “bottom has been hit and we are seeing a turn-around in performance,” according to Bump Williams, an alcohol industry expert.
Still, Bud Light remains the top-selling beer in America, according to NIQ data provided to CNN by Williams. NIQ measures sales at convenience, liquor and grocery stores across the United States. Bud Light has made up 35.1% of domestic beer sales this year (through May 27), according to NIQ. That easily beats No. 2 Coors Light, which controls 21.6% of the market.
Although Bud Light’s share of the domestic beer market has slipped considerably over the past couple months, it remains in the lead. In the week ended May 27, Bud Light controlled 28.8% of the market, compared to Coors Light, which made up 25.6% of overall sales, NIQ reported."
So, BL is still the number one domestic beer. Like most of our news and politics, they had to fill time for talking heads on TV and so this whole thing was treated as more significant for their business than it was, in my opinion.
And I honestly don't care about Bud Light. I don't drink much domestic light beer anymore, so I don't have a dog in this fight. I just think that the stories of the boycott and "collapse" of Bud Light are really much ado about nothing. This is just a drop in the pan for InBev, and BL still remains the nation's preferred version of pretty poop beer.