Heineken Ireland has reported revenues of €346m for 2007, up 4% on the previous year as the company said that its performance continues to benefit from people's preference for lager.
The firm says it holds nearly 22% of the beer market here, which is worth a total of €3.2 billion. In a beer market where lager experienced a volume increase of 1% on 2006, stout continues to experience a further year on year decline of over 3%.
The company's Heineken lager brand market share grew by 0.2 points to 17% in 2007. Its Coors Light brand is now ranked as the fifth biggest lager in the country and holds a 20% share of the competitive bottled pub market. Amstel also grew its volume in the on-trade market by 14% last year.
Murphy's Irish Stout maintains its market share of almost 5%. In Cork, its market share rose to 28.3% in pubs over the key Christmas period.
Meanwhile, Heineken Ireland's Dutch parent said its 2007 adjusted net profit for last year grew by 23%, though sales missed forecasts after poorer weather in the second half of the year.
Heineken, the world's fourth largest brewer by sales, posted operating profits of €1.528 billion, a fall of 16.6% due to a European Union fine for price fixing.
It warned that it expected raw material and packaging costs to increase by 15% this year but added that it would be to fully pass on these costs to most of its markets.
All brewers face soaring costs for malted barley and packaging material such has aluminium for cans. Increased demand for grains for the biofuel industry has added to pricing woes.
