Drop of Heineken sales in Russia quickens in Q2
MOSCOW. Aug 21 (Interfax) - The slump in Heineken sales in Russia picked up steam in the second quarter amid beer market contraction due to higher excises and certain legal restrictions.
Sales were down 5%-9% in Q2, at the level of H1 market contraction, a company statement says. In Q1, sales slid roughly 5% in the wake of the prohibition on selling beer out of kiosks, and the excise hike, the company said earlier.
H1 sales in the low-cost and affordable range continued to slide, though the Heineken and Amstel labels did show growth.
The company sold its former brewery Stepan Razin in St. Petersburg this year and put the Ivan Taranov brewery in Orenburg region up for sale. It also has breweries in Moscow, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Bashkir, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk and Kaliningrad.