Trans-Tasman brewer Lion has announced a fall in sales and profits for the first half of the current financial year. In six months to the end of March 2011 the company has announced sales down 6.3 percent to A$1.178 billion; reducing earning by 10 percent to A$308.9 million.
Sales decline was headed by a fall in beer sales of 10.3 percent, exacerbated by both the Christchurch earthquakes and the Queensland floods. With Lion’s brewing strength focussed on its XXXX brand based in Queensland, it suffered disproportionately from the natural disasters that hit the state over summer.
Lion estimates the impact on XXXX was what reduced its share of the beer market in Australia by 0.5 percent, the first reversal in market share for the company’s beers in five years.
Added to the decline of beer’s share of the liquor market on both sides of the Tasman, beer was the primary instigator of the fall in profits; with wine holding to a small decline in a difficult marketplace for both domestic and export sales. Other beverages, such as fruit juices, soft drinks and milk also returned poor figures, with milk sales suffering a 9 percent decline in value; feeding a 43.2 percent fall in first half profit that took A$68.3 million off the bottom line.
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