Dutch brewer Heineken posted a 1% rise in net profit for the third quarter, saying strong sales in Africa and elsewhere offset the impact of poor summer weather in Europe.
Net profit reached €525m in the three months from July to September, while sales grew slightly by 0.6% from last year to €4.65 billion, despite the disadvantage of a strong euro, the company said. Analysts had expected sales of around €4.55m.
Heineken sold 56.9 million hectolitres of beer in the third quarter, an increase of 2.7%, with western Europe the only region to record a fall in volume.
"This primarily reflects the impact of unusually poor weather in July and early August across large parts of the region and ongoing economic uncertainty," resulting in a 1.7% drop in volumes in western Europe, Heineken said in a statement.
"However, beer volumes showed solid improvement in the latter part of the quarter as weather conditions became favourable," it added.
Elsewhere, beer volumes grew by 4.9% in eastern Europe, driven by a "strong volume rebound in Russia", while in Africa and the Middle East, total volume grew by 10%, boosted by good results in Nigeria, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In Greece, the demand for beer was hampered by the government's austerity measures, leading to a single-digit decline, it said.
The Dutch group stressed its outlook was on target for 2011 with operating profit "broadly in line with last year" at €1.445 billion. Heineken planned by the end of 2013 to have implemented savings of €150m through synergies in distribution and administration after buying Mexican beer maker FEMSA. The deal was announced in January 2010 for €5.3 billion.
Heineken produces and sells over 200 brands of beer and cider. The group employes over 70,000 people worldwide.
