Turkish brewer Anadolu Efes posts loss despite increase in sales

According to a filing to the stock exchange, Efes – the beer market leader in Turkey, with a share of 86% – said sales rose 16% to 763.8m lira and had a net profit of 40m lira in the first quarter of 2008.

Efes has brewing operations in Russia, Kazahkstan, Georgia, Moldova and Serbia – areas whose once rapid growth has been hit by the global economic slowdown. The lira’s 9% drop against the dollar in the first three months of 2009 created foreign exchange losses for Efes and made it costlier to service foreign-denominated debt.

Efes holds a 50.3% stake in Coca-Cola ?çecek, which bottles soft drinks of The Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola ?çecek said this week it had a net loss of 58.8m lira and sales of 439.3m lira in the first quarter.

Last year, Efes saw domestic beer sales growth of 12%, outstripping its foreign unit Efes International, where growth was 5%. But Turkey’s once fast-growing economy has slowed to a six-year low, and the government expects gross domestic product to fall by 3.6% in 2009.

The slowdown will affect beer sales, and Efes gave guidance earlier this year that volume in Turkey would grow by low single digits, while it hopes to gain market share in eastern Europe by maintaining flat sales volume.

Source: Anadolu Efes