Heineken Holding N.V. (HEIO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Heineken's third quarter trading update. My name is Lydia, and I will be your operator today. [Operator Instructions]. I'll now hand you over to Tristan Van Strien, Director of Investor Relations of Heineken to begin.

Thank you, Lydia. Good afternoon from Amsterdam, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for today's live webcast of our 2024 Q3 trading update. Your host will be Harold van den Broek, our CFO. Following the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. The presentation includes forward-looking statements and expectations based on management's current views and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on the page of this presentation. I will now turn the call over to Harold.

Thank you, Tristan, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate the interest in our company. Let me now take a few minutes to give you a summary of the quarter and then indeed open the line for questions. We posted a quarter of solid balanced growth. Despite some markets navigating known and new challenging consumers and industry trends we delivered to our plan. The top line delivery was well balanced between volume and value, and our underlying premiumization trends remain strong. We also confirm and reiterate all elements of our expectations previously reported including expected operating profit by organic growth of 4% to 8% for the year 2024. Let us now look at some highlights. Group net revenue (beia) by was EUR 9.1 billion, an increase of 3.3% organically in the quarter, more than 5% year-to-date. And revenue (beia) per hectoliter increased by 2.6% for a large part due to inflation in pricing in Africa and premiumization throughout the group. Beer volume was up by almost 1% organically, and our premium beer portfolio grew by 5%. Brand Heineken was up by almost 9%, consistent with our performance year-to-date. Unpacking the quarter 3 revenue bridge, we delivered an organic growth of EUR 268 million or 3.3% net revenue (beia). Total consolidated volume on an organic basis was up 0.7%. The underlying price mix on a constant geographic basis was up 3%, ahead of the net revenue (beia) per hectoliter. The difference is caused by a dilutive geographical mix impact as the net revenue (beia) per hectoliter, for example, in Nigeria and India is below the Heineken average. Mix declined slightly in the quarter as the positive contribution from premiumization was more than offset by an adverse channel mix with the on-trade softer, especially in Europe. The translation of foreign currencies had a negative effect of EUR 470 million or 5.9%, mainly due to the devaluation of currencies in Africa, particularly the Nigerian naira and Ethiopian birr, as well as in Latin America with the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso. Consolidation changes in net revenue (beia) reduced revenue by EUR 132 million, mainly from the disposal of Vrumona in the Netherlands and our exit from Russia. Our growth in quarter 3 has been balanced and shows our evergreen strategy continues to deliver. Premium volume as set grew 5% ahead of our total portfolio. The growth has been delivered by a wide range of premium brands and extensions across our regions, including Kingfisher Ultra in India, Birra Moretti in Europe and Savanna in Southern Africa. And of course, led by Heineken, which was up 9%. Additionally, our nonalcoholic beer and cider portfolio grew 11%, further consolidating our leadership in this segment. Let's now take a closer look at the regions. Let me start with Africa and Middle East. Net revenue (beia) grew 23% organically with total consolidated volume up almost 6% and price/mix on constant geographical basis at 14.5% due to strong pricing across the region to offset inflation and the impact of currency devaluations. In the region, we continue to structurally adapt to strengthen our business model to profitably grow and win in a more volatile environment as exemplified in the quarter by the recapitalization in Nigeria and rebuilding momentum in Southern Africa. Beer volume increased organically by 6.4% with strong growth in Nigeria, South Africa and Namibia, more than offsetting declines in Ethiopia and Burundi. Premium volume grew in the high teens, led by Heineken and Savanna Cider. In Nigeria, we are building a sustainable business model to win in an at present economically challenged market, yet we believe with long-term strategic prospects. In that context, Nigerian Breweries successfully completed the rights issue on the 18th of October when Heineken supporting the offer and exercising the right in full. With a strengthened balance sheet, Nigerian breweries will be in a stronger position to unlock future opportunities. In the quarter, beer volume grew close to 30% with premium volume growth doubled had that rate, led by our dark beer innovation Goldberg Black, Desperados and Heineken. High inflation lead pricing in the quarter was needed to offset the significant devaluation of the Nigerian naira. As it stands currently, we anticipate Nigeria to be labeled as hyperinflationary at the end of the year. We will update the market at our full year results, but this may potentially trigger a noncash impairment if it does occur. Now to South Africa, where Dolf and I were last week and came back confident in the solid progress that we're making. Total volumes in the quarter expanded in the low teens as we cycled last year's integration challenges, now firmly behind us. Beer volume grew in the low 20s, led by Heineken, Windhoek, and Amstel, and we built momentum behind our multi-category business model and delivered growth in all categories. We were pleased to see the Heineken returnable bottle landing well in the market. Whilst there is more to do in our beer portfolio, our Cider Savanna and ready-to-drink Bernini to grew double digits, outperforming the market and expanding going to South Africa. Moving to the Americas. Net revenue (beia) grew close to 2% organically with total consolidated beer volume declining 1% and price/mix on a constant geographical basis was just up over 3%, led by pricing and the continued premiumization of the portfolio. Beer volume growth in Brazil partly offset declines in Mexico and the U.S.A., both of which are currently experiencing soft industry trends. Our premium portfolio grew by mid-single digit led by Heineken. The Mexican market has been less robust with some short-term economic setbacks post the recent election resulting in consumer expenditures being under increased pressure. Our market share remained broadly in line with market despite some shorter capacity constraints for cans, a fast-growing [indiscernible]. We nevertheless achieved solid volume growth in our affordable premium proposition Dos Equis and mainstream brands, Tecate Original and Indio, a local brand rooted in Mexican pride. In Brazil, the premiumization of our portfolio continues. Despite pressure in discounting in the low end of the market, we continue to purposefully and actively shape our portfolio towards the more attractive premium and mainstream segments. Beer volume grew by low single digit, led by Heineken and Amstel, both up in the teens. We expanded our zero alcohol portfolio with the launch of the vitamin-enhanced Sol Zero containing vitamin D and B, as you can see on the slide. In the United States, the well-publicized weakness in the market continues, though not in the 0.0 alcohol segment. Heineken 0.0 recorded double-digit growth as it delivered its 20th consecutive quarter of growth. Now on to Asia Pacific. Net revenue (beia) declined slightly with consolidated beer volume down by 1% and price/mix on a constant geographical basis up 1.5%. Despite encouraging progress in our largest markets, the quarter was impacted by lower revenues in Cambodia, where local competition and promotional pressure intensified in a declining market. In Vietnam, beer volume reduced by low single digit, trailing slightly the beer market, which nevertheless shows further signs of stabilizing over the quarter. The off-trade beer market is back in growth, and we are seeing declines in the on-trade moderating. As the economy strengthens and the Decree 100 implementation is cycled next quarter, we are cautiously optimistic and expect a return to a stable beer market. Adjusting to the new market reality, which see consumers shifting towards mainstream brands and home consumption, we are increasing our investments behind brands and balancing the portfolio. Whilst there is more to do, this more segmented approach is working. Heineken volume grew in the 40s, led by the continued success of Heineken Silver, which recorded its 12th consecutive quarter of growth. Our mainstream brands, Bia Viet and Bia Larue grew in the double digits. In India, beer volume grew by the mid-single digit, continuing its growth momentum. As market leader in the world's most populous market, we continue to expand and develop beer-centric occasions and shape the beer category to unlock the inherent growth. Premium volume grew in the 30s, led by Heineken Silver, Kingfisher Ultra and Kingfisher Ultra Max. In China, Heineken grew in the 20s with continued momentum of Heineken Original and Heineken Silver significantly outperforming both the premium segment and the broader and also weaker industry. And finally, a word on Europe. Net revenue (beia) declined just over 1%, with beer volume increasing over 1%. Price mix on a constant geographic basis decreased 0.5%. However, it's a worth a moment to emphasize that we maintained stable pricing across Europe, which was slightly offset by the mix impact of lower volume in the on-premise third-party wholesalers and intercompany exports. In a subdued consumer environment that is Europe at this moment in time, we are focused on remaining competitive by increasing investment behind our brands and balancing pricing with consumer affordability. This we achieved in the quarter as we grew volume and gained share in the majority of our markets. Premium beer volume outperformed, growing at mid-single digits, led by Birra Moretti, Desperados and Heineken alongside next-generation brands such as El Águila in Spain and [Texels] in the Netherlands. We're also pleased that in the quarter, Birra Moretti became the #1 brand in the U.K. off-premise. Let us now move on to discuss the Heineken brand performance in more detail. The Heineken brand continued to show great momentum and grew volume 9% with double-digit growth in more than 30 markets. The brand saw its strongest growth in our largest markets of Brazil and China as well as noticeable growth in South Africa and in Nigeria. The growth was supported by a solid performance of all it's line extensions, with Heineken 0.0 growing in all regions. Heineken Silver grew close to 30%, primarily led by Vietnam and China. Moving on to the last slide, our outlook. Reflecting our confidence in delivery and our commitment to invest behind growth and to future-proof our business, we confirm and reiterate our full year outlook as previously communicated. This includes our expectation to grow operating profit (beia) organically in the range of 4% to 8%. And for organic net profit (beia) growth to be closely in line. As we spoke about at the half year results, we are currently materially stepping up investments in our brands, focused on our greatest opportunities for long-term sustainable growth. With that, I would like to open the line for Q&A, and thank you for listening.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question today comes from Edward Mundy with Jefferies.

One question, one follow-up. So the first question is really around Vietnam. I'm hoping you might be able to expand on your commentary that the market has made further progress in stabilizing. What green shoots are you seeing? And given your efforts to rebalance the portfolio and increased market spend, do you expect to continue to close the gap such as the market into 2025? And then my follow-up, I guess, [indiscernible] asset you've got probably the strongest balance sheet of the European birth and you're below your leverage target. Clearly, investing behind the business is the key priority, but there's probably not that many growth businesses you can buy out there for under 9x EBITDA, which is your current multiple. Could you remind us what parameters you, Dolf, and Board consider when you're thinking about buybacks?

Thank you, Ed. And yes, an expected question, the second one as well, should I say. But let me first start talking about the business in Vietnam. I think what we're seeing is encouraging signs of further stabilization of that market. And in that stabilization, we do expect that the shift for the consumers to move from premium to mainstream is still there. But we also are very, very clear and happy to see that we're holding on to our main premium market share. This is an important metric for us. The second thing is that we also see that the shift from off-trade, from on-trade to off-trade is starting to stabilize. And once it is not yet fully there, we do see that with increase in economic prospects in Vietnam, and potentially lapping the Decree 100, also this trend will come to an end in the next quarter. And last but not least, as you heard me say many times around is that we do believe that the long-term potential of Vietnam should not be underestimated. We're still very, very bullish on the long-term potential of Vietnam, particularly when the economy is starting to recover and population trends continue with more and more people migrating to urban zones. So these are some of the market dynamics that we see, and we're encouraged with the trends that we see at macro in the beer market. What we also believe is important is to continue to invest in the strength of our brand portfolio in those respective segments. There is a reason why I'm calling out Heineken now for 12 consecutive quarters growing because the premium segment continues to be in existence, and we would really want to protect our market share there. At the same time, this rebalancing of the portfolio has its own metrics of success. And also there, we see significant progress being made, particularly on Bia Viet and particularly on Bivina and Larue in selected places is also starting to look better versus the previous past. So to your point, we are closing the gap as we see it, but in its relevant competitive levels. In aggregate, we still see a negative mix from the market moving from premium to mainstream, but we do see that tempering in 2025, which is why we're calling out that the market is stabilizing and our performance is getting better. So that is part of the Vietnam question. I think to your point on the balance sheet, I think it's a really relevant question. As you know, our priorities are indeed to invest first and foremost in the organic growth of our business. Secondly, we're happy with a consistent dividend policy. The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is something that we really value. And then there is always these inorganic opportunities that we always will consider because we would like to be part of the growth part of the beer industry. And last, but not least and certainly becoming more relevant today than it was in the past, is a potential for capital allocation back to the shareholders. I think this is now, as I said, last time, a more active part of the dialogue. But as soon as we know more and have taken some decisions, we will communicate about that. And yes, maybe it's a good time to ask that question again at the full year results. At the moment in time, we are really navigating [indiscernible] of 2024.

Next question comes from Sanjeet Aujla with UBS.

Harold, a couple from me as well, please. Firstly, on Europe, can you just talk a little bit about how Europe has played out versus your expectations a few months ago. There's been a lot of noise about the weather, consumer weakness as well. Maybe give us a flavor of how bad the on-trade channel was, to what degree that was weather or consumer? And you spoke a little bit about balancing pricing with consumer affordability against that backdrop, is it reasonable to assume muted pricing in Europe to persist. So that's my first question. A follow-up just really on the COGS outlook for 2025, given where your hedges are in place. Can you give us a feel for how the COGS outlook is shaping up for next year, particularly including transactional FX in Mexico and Brazil.

Sanjeet, I've heard you. I'm just writing the questions down, so I'm not forgetting them. So look, the expectations in Europe, maybe it's good to take a step back at the start of this year when we issued our full year guidance for 2024. We basically said that we would expect in 2024 to continue to operate in a macroeconomic environment that was uncertain. And in particular, we were a bit concerned with the state of the economy, frankly, particularly in Europe. And therefore, first and foremost, we knew that after a period of high pricing to cater for that inflation it was important to bring, let's call it, the industry back to growth and to make sure that we restore competitiveness, first in our own portfolio and then secondly, as beer as compared to wider alcohol industry. So that was our main job to be done when we went into 2024, and we've made our plans accordingly. This is also why you're hearing us talk about moderating pricing and to increase competitiveness in the markets where we feel we are not competitive, like we've done, for example, in the Netherlands or where we are responding to some competitive moves like in the place of Italy. We want to do that without, in a way disrupting the progress that we're making to restore the health of the beer category in general. So we believe that a better way to compete is building good brands and building innovation like we've done with Cruzcampo in the U.K. rather than just pressing the promotion button because it basically commoditizes the category. This is not what we want to do. So our expectation from the onset was a softer consumer sentiment in Europe and the need to restore category health and within that brand portfolio health in Europe. In that context, and I called out the weather, specifically in June because, frankly, it was a perfect storm at that moment in time, and this was not meeting our expectations. But in quarter 3, we returned back to that balance that we saw at the outset. So I cannot say that our core 3 expectations in Europe are miles off versus our internal plan. This is pretty much on plan. And we believe that we're actually pretty happy with the market share progress that we're making. So we don't want to blame weather every time that we have a conference call. So yes, September was rainy. I also experienced that myself. But this is not going to be a determining factor like it was in June. When, of course, we had 2 sports festivities to start over the summer and high investment to start that summer as good as it could be expected. And that was a perfect storm that I wanted to single out. That is not the case in this case with our quarter 3 results in Europe. What we do see is that consumers are holding in there. We're actually pretty pleased with the pricing, the net pricing that we're generating in Europe, which is broadly stable after a double-digit price increase last year, but we see that particularly in the on-trade, consumers are careful about how and where they spend the money. And you heard me say before is that people drink better, but they drink less. And that is still the case also in quarter 3. So off-trade was better. On-trade was actually slightly below. And I do believe that this dynamic will not go away in the near future. We do believe that muted crisis, to your point, will continue to exist because all of us are really trying to be prudent in pricing and really invest behind category growth and building the right portfolio in order to drive volume growth. And that's our priority #1 that we had in Europe. I hope -- I think it's a super relevant question for our biggest region, and that's why I wanted to do some justice to it, but I hope I gave you sufficient context there. The COGS outlook for 2025 is a bit early to give you a full perspective. And therefore, we will give you a proper outlook with our full year results in 2025. But let me just give you 2 or 3 pointers there. The first one is we have made no changes to our commodity hedging strategy. So we're now about 70% covered for 2025 where we can cover because not all of our commodities and our contracts can be covered. For example, the energy market is not fully there open to cover. Secondly, a bigger part of our inflationary pressure in 2024 is coming from the African markets, where we have a lot of local-for-local sourcing. And with devaluating currencies, this also has inflationary pressures that brings with it. And we frankly believe that this will continue into 2025. And to your point on transactional ForEx, I think I mentioned in the capital -- was it in the Barclay conference this September? In the September conference, that we are well hedged into our transactional ForEx, particularly for Mexico, where we took a slightly longer-term view, which in a way is not a bad situation to be at present. And that is a bit more normalized in Brazil. So we do see transactional foreign exchange exposure in Brazil, a little bit more favorable in Mexico. But a fuller outlook on input cost guidance, you will get at the full year results.

Next in queue, we have Simon Hales with Citi.

Harold, can you just talk a little bit more about Mexico? Can you give us a bit more color on the trading volume there? It looks like the market has clearly slowed a little bit in Q3. What are the main drivers of that? Are you seeing weakening consumer confidence? And how should we think about returning volumes back to grow perhaps either in Q4 or into 2025? That's my first. And then secondly, just to follow up on your comments around Europe. Just so I'm clear, you said you expect the kind of revenue per hectoliter headwinds that we've seen in Q3 to persist going forward. Does that mean you expect revenue per hectoliter probably to remain negative through Q4 and into 2025? Or is it more the fact that the channel mix and the share of the on-premise seasonally in Q4 eases, but you should see some improvement in the revenue per hectoliter in a stable pricing environment.

Yes. Simon, thank you, and thanks for the questions. Let me start with the latter because it builds on Sanjeet's question on Europe as well. Look, we're currently in the middle of our planning process in Europe. So I'm not going to be too specific on forward-looking statements on revenue per hectoliter. So I'm just going to give you some color rather than a precise direction. I think it's quite important to distinguish between the 3 components of revenue per hectoliter. The first one is indeed operating company and channel mix, right? Because we're competing market by market. And if that means that we're selling a little bit more in Poland and a little bit less in the U.K. then in a way, as long as we are competing effectively in those markets, we're good to go with that, right? It's the OpCo mix that then drives those results, not necessarily the profitability of Europe because we do have local footprints as well. The second part is this, and I do think that, that shift that OpCo may shift is not going to be a big factor into 2025. The second one, which is going to be a continuing factor into 2025, weather dependent, of course, is the whole shift of off-trade growing and on-trade continuing to be more subdued than what we saw in 2019. And we believe that, that is a trend that is not reversing itself in the foreseeable future, simply because of the outlook of consumer confidence, the consumer spendable income and what we see in the number of outlets in the on-trade that are becoming less and less. So that is a permanent factor that we need to take into account or at least a permanent for the foreseeable future. Let me not make it too permanent. And the third one is really the intercompany effect that came into play, which you see in the revenue per hectoliter, but it's not really a -- that's just intercompany volumes. That is also not a market reality that affects the profitability or the revenue growth in Europe. So I do want to nuance that. I think the on-trade is the relevant factor. I think the price stabilization, including revenue per hectoliter that we are seeing and which I'm calling out as pure pricing is something that we find is a good result in 2024. And we're trying to do a little bit better into 2025. But the on-trade mix is something to work on for the longer term, not for the shorter term. Maybe that's perhaps decomposing that a little bit more on the European growth strategy that we see. The second one is on Mexico and the Mexican trading. First and foremost, we really believe that also here Mexican is a very big important market for us, and we are long term having quite some confidence that this market will continue to grow because of its underlying dynamics, right? There is good GDP growth, there is population growth. There is a stable competitive set. And therefore, we believe in the long-term growth potential here. We also are pleased that we are broadly maintaining share in this market despite the fact that we have some shortages on the canning, which is a [back type] that seems to be very popular at this moment in time and which we are addressing. We have, however, experienced a slowdown of the industry, which we attribute to a weaker economy at this moment in time with many of these factors actually temporary in nature. There was some post-election nervousness because of a change in administration that post social programs, reducing income from many of our consumers. And we're also observing a delay in foreign direct investment because people are very uncertain about the outcome of the U.S. elections in the next couple of weeks. Remittances have been a bit slow in the last quarter because of unemployment of the Hispanic cohort in the U.S. And of course, I never blame weather in the short term, but Mexico was affected by 4 hurricanes in the past quarter. So some of these indicators are more in the short term relevant than on the long term in Mexico. So we believe that this will revert. We also believe that we are right to focus on maintaining market share and hopefully growing that because we expect the market to bounce back and return to growth.

The next question today comes from Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank.

Harold, given we're 9 months into fiscal '24, can you just give a comment on the breadth of the guidance range, 400 basis points seems quite a lot of uncertainty with 3 quarters of the year behind us. And perhaps you could just give us some additional color on what factors would see you land at the top or bottom end of that range. And then my related follow-up is what are the puts and takes for margins in the second half? Clearly, you've cited higher marketing is a drag. But can you comment on input costs and any other line items that might mean that margins are down organically year-on-year in the second half?

So thanks, Mitch. Look, we debated about what to do with the guidance range. But I think the most important signal that we want to give in our quarter 3 trading update, and also with this call is that we are in control of the controllables and do not want to bring any surprises at this moment in time. We've listened to the feedback and basically really want to be consistent and predictable. And that is what we're aiming to signal. The fact that we, therefore, calling out that we are reiterating and are confident in our guidance is exactly meant to do that is to say we've got a clear line of sight of what the range is of our operating margin guidance range. We are firmly on track with our growth savings, but we've also indicated in the half year that we will be stepping up the investments, particularly compared to a lower base in 2023 in order to really invest behind the markets with potential that we see for the longer term including some of the discussions that we just had in Europe in order to reinvigorate the category and continue to win market share. And we're trying to balance those two. So we're very consistent in what we're striving for. We're also quite consistent in our investment and in our delivery. And that is what makes us confident into the 4% to 8% range without feeling the need to update this at this moment in time; which makes, of course, your question about what are the goalposts both to the top and to the bottom relevant. I think there are basically 2 factors. The first one is, we've also seen that there is a continued uncertainty in the world, which we are navigating. You will have read in our comments also the fact that Cambodia is currently a very hardly contested market, but we're able to sort of absorb that in the totality of our portfolio. And secondly, I don't need anybody to be reminded of the fact that we've got a geographically dispersed footprint with big summers coming both in South Africa and Brazil, which are 2 of our biggest and most important markets. So you also know that we're reporting China with 2 months delay and our Heineken business is doing very well, but the total industry is somewhat softer there. So those are some of the considerations that we put out there that we want to be consistent. We want to continue to invest behind our brands and future-proofing the organization, and we want to deliver in line with this guidance, irrespective of a good or a less good summer in some of the markets that I've just called out.

Our next question was from Gen Cross with BNP Paribas.

A couple of questions from me. Could you update us quickly on the competitive environment, particularly in the value segment of the Brazilian beer market? Have you seen any reduction in the aggressive pricing behavior. And my second question is just on the no alcohol business, which saw quite good growth in the quarter. Could you give us an update on how big that business is? The proportion of total beer and potentially where you see that heading over the midterm?

Thanks, Gen. Both very relevant questions for us. So you will have seen indeed in our Brazil section that we are continuing to drive the strategy that we feel is successful already in the long term which is really building premium brands and mainstream brands in the Brazil market has been proven a considerable success for us for the last couple of years. And just for the people on the call who perhaps don't know that, but we have now got more than 70% of our total portfolio fully converted into mainstream or premium segments. We're still 30% in the below mainstream segment. And that was the other side the way around 6 or 7 years ago. So we've made a massive portfolio shift. Now part of that portfolio shift has also translated to better financials because you will have seen and recollect from the half 1 results that the profit growth in the Americas has been really very, very encouraging. And that is to now, a small extent delivered by our Brazil business who now has scale and the right portfolio to contribute to the margins of Heineken. So that shaping of the portfolio is something that we believe in and continue to invest behind for example, with big plans around the upcoming Formula 1 in Sao Paulo with the Heineken brand. It is also important to note that actually the fastest-growing segment is still the premium segment. So once economy has stopped declining with the actions from Petropolis, which you refer to as the competitive end. At the lower end of the spectrum is stopped declining and is now back to growth. The fastest-growing segment is still the premium segment, which is where we continue to lean on and invest in. It is true that Petropolis is taking share, both from us and from ABI, particularly in volume, of course, and we are very intentional about where to compete and where we do not compete. And unapologetically, we are also saying that we are not going to compete if that really destroys our profitability. And Brazil is a large market with a complex infrastructure and a huge transport differences. So we really are calculating almost city by city, brewery to city footprint about how and where to compete in the value segment. And that is our strategy that we're now accelerating in order to make sure that we don't bleed share too much in that segment. So that is about the competitive environment. Do I believe that, that will temporarize at some point? I do. Because also their Petropolis has to lap their growth, what they've already gained. But that is not something that we currently see happening in a hurry. And that means that we need to adjust our competitive strategy, as I just discussed. Without defocusing from our portfolio strategy that is working, that is not a compromise that we want to make. We are, therefore, not reducing pricing. We are not discounting our premium propositions, we are competing with Petropolis in the regions, in the sectors, in the cities that we see fit with preservation of our financial model. On the non-alcohol part, at this moment in time, the non-alcohol part is about 4% of our portfolio. And we do see acceleration in many markets. For example, in Europe, but also, for example, in the U.S. and is now starting to happen in Brazil, where Heineken 0.0 but now also Sol Zero is gaining some level of traction. We do believe that this category, which has been growing about 6% on average since what was it 2018, we'll continue with growth trajectory. And we believe that over the next foreseeable future, this could double to about 6% or 7%, so increased by about 50%, to about 6% to 7% of our total portfolio. We have high hope for the non-alcohol portfolio.

And our final question today comes from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein.

Two questions from my side, please. The first one, just on this 0.0. I saw that the Heineken brand was up about 9%. Total non-alcohol beer was up 11%, but Heineken 0.0 was up 3% and whether is that -- do you think that's permanent to change the momentum between the relative sectors? Or was it just a bad quarter for Heineken 0.0? And perhaps a bigger picture question to finish, with Q3 under your post, some signs of stabilization in Vietnam, you're looking forward to 2025. What do you think about the business and momentum more broadly based?

Yes. Thank you. So first, and thanks for the question. On 0.0 as well is no, we don't believe that this is a permanent new trend. We believe that there's more potential about it. It was indeed a poor quarter. It was signaled out in some of the markets, none of which I should bore you with because otherwise, frankly, you read too much into this. It was just a matter of not being in the right place at the right time with the right investment in some of these markets, but nothing that structurally worries us. So we do believe that this will pick up in the quarters to come. Now more to your more, let's call it fundamental question, is about how do you feel about your markets? And what is your outlook for the performance? I think the way that I read the newspapers, but also have my own conversations with peer group companies. We do believe that on a macro level, it continues to be, let's be careful about the market outlook. We believe that the macroeconomic stability, but also the geopolitical stability is no different than when we went into 2024. And at the same time, we also have heard loud and clear that predictable, consistent delivery is something that we aspire to and also is expected of us. So our ingoing position in 2025 is cautious on the external environment and be quite bold on our internal ambitions, including generating funding for growth because we will have to invest behind our brands, our customers and the category health in order to make sure that beer is loved and relevant as people make their trade-offs in how they spend their money. Now there are some positive signs that I don't want us to read too much into. But at the same time, I also don't want to be too negative about the environment looking into 2025. First and foremost, I returned to Europe. It was super important for us to basically see stabilization of volumes and returning to growth, and we are delivering upon that. We're also doing that in a context where we know that consumer affordability becomes a bigger part of people's considerations. And we are doing that with price adjustments where as needed, but more importantly, with structural investment behind brands, and by driving innovation, like for example, the Birra Moretti across multiple parts of the world, the El Águila, the Cruzcampo in the U.K. And people enjoy discovering new beers in their bars, as I'm sure you do as well, Trevor, and this is something that we believe is a continuous for success as we start to unlock the growth in Europe. Secondly, we do see that in Brazil, our premiumization strategy continues to work. We had double-digit growth with Heineken. We had double-digit growth in Amstel and we are finding ways to respond to the value segment as I just alluded to with Glen. So we believe that Brazil is going to be an engine of growth for the future, and we will see continued investment going in Brazil to capture that growth. To the point, Vietnam is stabilizing, and we have really started to be now more agile in how we adjust our portfolio at the upper end, not only with Tiger, but also with Heineken, becoming an ever bigger presence there, but also with the economy -- sorry, with the mainstream, let me not say economy, with the mainstream brands in our portfolio, where we are very targeted and seeing some of the promising signs of early success. And as I said, 2 more things to call out. Dolf and myself were pretty encouraged coming back to Southern Africa, not to say that we don't have a massive competitor that really is very determined. But more and more, we learned how to compete, and we really see that we have a path forward, which is pretty clear. And India continues to be a fantastic opportunity for us for the longer term. And it's very encouraging to see that the industry, the beer industry, continues to motor another 5% to 6% volume growth in the industry is large and the premium is now starting to grow in the 30s. So whilst on average, or in aggregate, I should say, it's cautious on the outlook. I do believe that we have bought levers to pull in order to create a predictable and consistent performance into 2025, but more of that in a few months. And with that, thank you very much -- thank you, Trevor. Thank you. And with that, I think we come to a close. I'm not sure there are any remaining questions. If not, then let's leave it at is. Let me thank you for taking the time to listen, to engage and to be, hopefully, supporters of our beer if not of our stock. And I hope to see you soon out there in the market in real life. Thank you very much for joining the call.

This concludes our call today. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.