The full-year outlook for Dutch beer maker Heineken will be in focus on September 10 when the world's fourth-largest brewer posts first-half earnings, forecast to be flat and in line with the company's guidance, Reuters said in a statement. Analysts said Heineken’s first-half statement should provide fewer headlines than usual, after the brewer warned in June its first-half profit before exceptional items would be flat compared to the EUR 330 million posted a year earlier.
Heineken said at the time that the global economic slowdown, the war in Iraq, SARS and the strong euro had hit sales, adding it could not determine its full-year outlook before sales data from July and August were available.
Heineken, which ranks fourth in sales after Anheuser-Busch of the United States, South Africa’s SABMiller and Belgium’s Interbrew, had previously forecast ‘03 profits would rise.
Heineken said on Friday it planned to cut nearly a tenth of its workforce in the Netherlands as a gradual decline of beer consumption is expected to continue. The company is due to report earnings on Wednesday. “Given the positive weather circumstances in the important months July and August, we expect the company to be somewhat more upbeat in their targets for the second half compared to the first half,” Effectenbank Stroeve analyst Sander van Oort said. Heineken, like many other brewers, is facing sluggish growth in the mature western European market, where beer consumption growth has stalled.

09 September, 2003