Heineken Malaysia’s revenue rises in 4Q

PETALING JAYA: Heineken Malaysia Bhd saw sales volumes come under pressure in its financial year ended Dec 31, 2025 (FY25) following price hikes, as weaker consumer sentiment and cautious discretionary spending weighed on demand, even as the brewer delivered resilient earnings through pricing and productivity measures.

Managing director Martijn René van Keulen said the challenging environment reflects both global and domestic factors, with uncertainty expected to persist in the near term.

“That (volatility) automatically impacts consumer sentiment, and at the moment, sentiment in Malaysia is not very positive,” he said aåçt a press conference held in conjunction with the group’s earnings announcement.

van Keulen said headline macro indicators may paint a positive picture, but the benefits are not evenly felt across society.

“If you look at the scorecard of Malaysia as a country, there’s a lot of green dots there.

“But if you unravel that a bit more, we also see that certain segments are benefiting a lot more,” he said.

“There’s a gap for households, people on the street, that is really not as flourishing as some of the indicators see or project. Affordability, of course, is an outcome of that.”

As consumer sentiment weakens, he said spending behaviour is shifting, particularly across consumption channels.

“You see that in more and more countries, the consumer behaviour is shifting from on-trade to off-trade,” he said, noting that consumers are increasingly purchasing beer from supermarkets rather than consuming it at bars and restaurants.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2025 (4Q25), Heineken Malaysia’s revenue rose 1.9% year-on-year to RM839.05mil from RM823.14mil, mainly driven by the excise duty increase in November 2025, further supported by effective revenue management, distribution efforts and strategic commercial initiatives.

Net profit for the quarter increased marginally by 0.3% to RM141.25mil from RM140.85mil a year earlier.

Excluding the reinvestment tax allowance that benefited 4Q24, chief financial officer Jana Martine Hanneman said the group’s underlying profitability for 4Q25 would have increased by approximately 8%.

For FY25, revenue was flat at RM2.8bil, while net profit declined 1.6% to RM459.34mil from RM466.75mil in FY24, primarily due to the absence of the reinvestment tax allowance recorded in the prior year.

Excluding this one-off factor, underlying profitability would have improved by about 4%.

On the 10% excise duty increase effective Nov 1, 2025, van Keulen said the higher costs have been fully passed on to consumers.

“The consumer has to adapt to the excise increase, which has been passed on fully to them,” he said.

“There is definitely some weaker consumer sentiment, and we need to see how that, over time, pans out.”

Despite rising tourist arrivals, van Keulen said the impact on beer consumption has been limited.

“It is super positive for Malaysia as a country that we see much more visitors, but in the scheme of things, we see not a gigantic move in consumption,” he said.

Looking ahead, van Keulen said 2026 marks the start of Heineken Malaysia’s new five-year business strategy.

On volumes, he said the overall beer category remained under pressure in 2025.

“We hope to see that definitely there is more stabilisation or even growth from a volume perspective in 2026,” he said.

“But at the end of the day, it is also for us a balance game between volume and value.

“We are not running only a volume company, we are running a company that also is delivering a share of the value year-on-year.

“And it’s a very fine line.”

Heineken Malaysia declared a dividend of RM1.12 a share for 4Q25, bringing FY25 dividend to RM1.52, three sen lesser compared RM1.55 in FY24.

The dividend payout ratio for the year is consistent at 100%.

Meanwhile, Heineken NV, which is listed on NYSE Euronext Amsterdam and holds a 51% stake in Heineken Malaysia, reported a 4.7% decline in revenue to €34.26bil for FY25 under the International Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS.

Despite the weaker top line, stringent cost control lifted the Dutch brewer’s net profit 92.7% to €1.89bil, while operating profit margin edged up five basis points to 11.8%.

On a before-exceptional-items and amortisation basis, Heineken NV’s revenue inched up 0.2% to €34.4bil and operating profit rose 4.4% to €4.39bil, expanding the margin by 41 basis points to 15.2%.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for about 12% of Heineken NV’s total revenue, but contributed over 20% of operating profit.

The region accounted for roughly one-fifth of the group’s total volume, contributing 56.4 million hectolitres out of 281.6 million hectolitres.