Campari Australia is celebrating 3.7% growth in the first nine months of 2019, driven by huge Aperol sales and Wild Turkey RTD success.
Sales in Asia Pacific (6.7% of total Group sales) grew organically by +0.9%, as the largest market Australia registered an organic growth of +3.7%, driven by Aperol sales and Wild Turkey ready-to-drink and bourbon, SKYY and Espòlon, while the other markets in the region declined organically by -4.8%, largely due to a tough comparison base.
Globally, Campari reported sales of €1,303.8 million, with organic growth of +6.9% on a reported basis, and growth of +8.6% after the exchange rate and perimeter effects.
CEO Bob Kunze-Concewitz said: ‘In the first nine months 2019 we achieved strong organic sales growth, despite the tough comparable base and poor weather across Northern Europe, driven by the positive underlying sales momentum in the core developed markets, particularly the aperitifs business.
“Key underlying profitability indicators grew ahead of organic sales development, thanks to a very positive sales mix, which helped offset the dilutive impact generated by the agave cost and the emerging markets sales recovery, as well as favourable phasing effects in the third quarter.
“The outlook remains unchanged and fairly balanced in terms of risks and opportunities on a full year basis. We remain confident in delivering a positive performance across all key underlying business indicators.’.
Kunze-Concewitz said Campari had “good traction” in its Australian business.
“It was a very positive performance in Australia at 3.7%, where we’re growing at double the market rate and continuing to take market share,” he noted. “And bear in mind that in Australia, we had quite a tough comp base last year, where we were up by 12.9% in nine months. Overall, the growth is driven by Wild Turkey ready-to-drink as well as Aperol, which is continuing its double-digit trend, growing by 34.2% in the period.
“Our RTD in Australia is doing very nicely, up 3.9% on 9 months, 5.8% on the quarter.”
Aperol sales growth continues to be a winner for the company, with a 21.5% jump in sales globally.
Kunze-Concewitz revealed the company is currently testing the product in China.
“We started testing Aperol in certain neighborhoods, mostly in Shanghai, and we’re seeing quite a positive response,” he said. “So we’re going to put more of the focus on that. And we’d hope our Chinese business in the mid-term to be driven by SKYY as well as Aperol and also later on whiskeys, both American as well as scotch.”
