Jameson owner Pernod Ricard said it anticipates growth in 2024 despite a “soft start to the year”, highlighting weaknesses in its key US and Chinese markets.
The Paris listed group, which owns brands including Martell Cognac and Absolut vodka, said sales in the three months to the end of September totalled more than €3 billion, an organic decline of 2 per cent year-on-year.
Pernod, the second largest drinks group globally behind Diageo, had previously flagged the potential for a slow start to its 2023/2024 financial year amid worsening consumer sentiment in the world’s two largest economies where sales declined 8 per cent in each market over the period.
“As expected, we experienced a soft start to the year, yet I am encouraged we have largely offset declines in US and China this quarter, thanks to our good performance in other markets,” said group chairman and chief executive Alexandre Ricard.
The group said its weaker performance was “partially offset” by a “very dynamic performance in the rest of Asia, modest growth in India, resilience in Europe and stability in travel retail”.
Sales in its strategic brands category declined 3 per cent, it said, driven partially by a decline in Jameson – manufactured through its Irish Distillers subsidiary – and Absolut sales in the US and Martell sales in China.
But the drinks giant said the declines were partially offset by a strong price mix effect, benefiting from price increases implemented across its stable last year.
“Our strategy over many years has been to build a diversified portfolio and broad geographic footprint across mature and emerging markets,” said Mr Ricard. “This strategy provides us with the resilience to weather challenging times enabling a consistently solid performance.”
He said: “I am confident that we can deliver broad-based and diversified organic sales growth in FY24″.
