Irish ‘Guinness’ sales flat for H1

While net sales in Ireland itself were flat, global sales of the Guinness brand and its variant range of beers - which Diageo Ireland states includes Guinness stout, Hop House 13 and Diageo innovations such as West Indies and Dublin Porters as well as Guinness Pale Ale - grew 4%, reports Diageo in its H1 results for the six months to December 31st, with good performance in Europe as ‘Guinness’ continued to benefit from the successful launch of the ‘Brewers Project’ range.

In Ireland however, the Guinness range grew just 1% (also driven by the continued success of Hop House 13 Lager and the launch of ‘Behind Every town’ campaigns across the country).

But Diageo Ireland’s other beer brands offset this growth by registering a 3% decline in sales.

While Guinness draught “grew and gained share in GB on-premise in the first half” the success of Hop House 13 here in Ireland was replicated in the UK with strong growth and share gains in the lager category continuing for the six-month period, reports Diageo which attributes nearly 8% of its ‘Guinness’ business there to Hop House.

Net sales of Diageo’s spirits portfolio rose 13% in Ireland, largely driven by its gin brands Gordons and Tanquery.

 

Global sales

Globally, a strong double-digit growth performance by Gordons and Tanquery led to a 16% increase in its sales of gin – gin accounts for 4% of its net sales – which led, in turn, to a 5% boost to its spirits sales generally on a 2% volume increase at Diageo during the first six months. Of the ‘giant’ brands only Smirnoff suffered a decline – down 1% during the 6-month period.

Organic H1 net sales of Baileys were up 6%. Some 275 million litres of fresh Irish milk are required annually to produce the cream used in the production of Baileys. This milk is supplied from 40,000 dairy cows, grazing on 1,500 Irish farms. This is the equivalent of nearly 5% of Ireland’s total milk production.

While Diageo’s European net sales were up 4%, overall Diageo enjoyed an organic increase in volume of 1.8% with net organic sales up 4.2% to £6.53 billion compared to £6.42 billion in H1 2017 so the H1 2018 figure represents a 1.7% increase in reported net sales.

Operating Profits were up a reported 6.1% to £2.19 billion from H1 in 2017’s figure of £2.1bn or by an organic 6.7%.