Carlsberg Malaysia banks on festive season to drive final quarter sales

Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd (Carlsberg Malaysia) recently announced its Q3FY2024 financial results, reporting an overall 8.3% year-on-year growth in revenue to RM555.9mn (US$124.1mn) and a healthy 19.8% growth in net profit to RM91mn (US$20.3mn).

That said, the firm operates in both Malaysia and Singapore, and the majority of positive news was contributed by its Malaysian operations – in Singapore, Q3 revenue dropped 6% to RM142.4mn (US$31.8mn) and group profit from operations dropped 6.1% to RM15.3mn (US$3.4mn).

This drop was mostly attributed to the major change that Carlsberg Malaysia made in its premium beer portfolio earlier this year, when it had switched its exclusive Japanese premium beer partner from Asahi Super Dry to Sapporo as of January 2024.

Carlsberg Malaysia Managing Director Stefano Clini had previously expressed optimism that Sapporo had the potential to become ‘the number one Japanese beer brand in Malaysia by far’.

This does seem to be boding well given its performance in this market, but it remains to be seen whether things will be equally as optimistic in Singapore.

“Looking ahead, despite the continued global uncertainties and ongoing inflationary pressures, [we remain] optimistic that the anticipated stronger local economic growth may spur improvement in consumer sentiment,” Clini added.

“Additionally, the upcoming year-end festivities, including an earlier Chinese New Year celebration, are expected to positively impact the Q4 [sales volumes].

“We will remain focused on our cost management and optimisation strategies in supply chain [where] the productivity gains achieved will allow us to accelerate investments in all our brands.

“One of the strategies for our portfolio of brands continues to be to ‘Accelerate Premium’ [and the premium innovation] Sapporo is part of this.”

Carlsberg has also recently completed the installation of its new canning line and filtration plant upgrading as part of its RM200mn (US$44.6mn) brewery transformation.

Sapporo advantages

One major difference between Carlsberg’s partnerships with Asahi Super Dry and Sapporo is in the brewing of the sold product, as the former was generally imported from Japan whereas the latter is being brewed locally.

“The major added advantages of the Sapporo partnership include this being locally brewed, and being able to offer this as a draft beer off-premise [as opposed to selling just in cans],” Clini said.

“We continue to target premium beer drinkers with this, and [still believe that] this group as long as new consumers familiar with the Sapporo brand will be drawn in as this is the oldest premium beer brand in Japan.”