Beer Group President and Anadolu Efes CEO Can Çaka’s Comments
I am happy to have delivered robust results demonstrating resilience and agility of our operation and business portfolio despite volatilities and challenges. The unfortunate earthquakes happened in the southeastern part of our country at the beginning of the year affected our domestic operations in both business lines inevitably. Thanks to our fast decision-making and adaptability skills; the financial impact on our operations was limited. However, social and psychological impacts of it on our country are measureless. Our support to the region will continue until our wounds recover although I certainly know that it will take time.” commented Mr. Can Çaka, Beer Group President and Anadolu Efes CEO.
The year started with strong topline growth coupled with solid margin expansion. The results were beyond our initial expectations for the first quarter although we faced certain demand pressure in some of our operating markets. Timely and effective pricing since last year along with successful revenue management initiatives led our revenue growth to significantly outpace volume growth and therefore net sales revenue reached TL 24.6 billion yielding an EBITDA (BNRI) margin of 17.1%.
It was quite a strong quarter for our beer business where Türkiye and Georgia operations showed significant volume improvement in the period. In Russia, the beer industry showed a volatile trend in the quarter with an overall negative dynamic. Our own volume performance was also lower versus last year yet showed significant improvement versus last quarter of 2022 thanks to our customized projects in the marketplace and new product launches. In Türkiye, the year started with very strong momentum driven by increased consumer base. There was double-digit volume growth in January which slowed down in the following months due to the impact of devastating earthquake and start of Ramadan period in Mid-March. However, volume growth was at strong high-single digit, significantly above our budgets which encourages us for the peak season.
Our soft drink business recorded solid results in international operation with Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan delivering double-digit volume growth. Domestic operations showed decline cycling a very a strong base in 1Q2022 further affected by the impact of earthquake.
The robust first quarter results give us encouragement for the coming period. We believe in our ability to deliver our targets for 2023 as we continue to invest in our strategic core priorities in order to drive sustainable value for our shareholders with our winning portfolio and operational excellence commitment.