Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (NYSE:BUD) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Laurence Whyatt: Firstly, we saw a Winter World Cup in much of the Northern Hemisphere, but of course, it was the Summer World Cup for much of the Southern Hemisphere. We didn’t hear too much about any benefit from that over the last few months and the last quarter. Are there any geographies that took a real benefit? Do you see anything in Brazil or South America or Africa from that World Cup benefit? And then, secondly, we’ve seen a decline in a number of your input costs, and I understand you hedged generally on a 12-month basis. If you were to look at the current spot rates of those input costs, would they be below the current hedge rate for your 2023 COGS, i.e., would you expect 2024 input cost to be below the current level of 2023 hedges?

Michel Doukeris: Hey Laurence, it’s Michel here. I’ll take the first one and leave the second to Fernando. I think that you are not hearing me talk too much about that because it’s still depressing, Brazil lost. But all in all, FIFA was a great opportunity once again for us to activate our brands. And different geographies, they had different results. Of course, you can imagine that Argentina had extended party that never ended, went through December and parts of January, and some other countries, they run short and the interest was likely smaller. But I think that the benefit was great for the brands. So Budweiser had a hell of a run and very strong results in brand equity across the globe with the campaigns that we run. The interest for the sport, all-time high and huge excitement building up now for the next event that’s going to be Canada, U.S. and Mexico.

We activated our brand, especially digitally. We gained 500 million consumers more. So, there was an interesting way of seeing the power of integration of brand campaigns and our digital products, and we had a great volume of Budweiser in quarter four. The exception was China once again because of the lockdowns, very relevant Budweiser market for the — for Budweiser. So we saw that the Budweiser was not good, but outside China, very positive, especially in the places where we heavily activated the campaign.

Fernando Tennenbaum: And Laurence, on your question on input costs, it’s too early for us to start looking at this metric. We normally hedge 12 months out. So we are just starting to look at 2024. Probably more as the year goes by, we’re going to have a more relevant information that is more useful for us to start thinking about. So, too soon to make any comment on that.

Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks.

Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse. And thank you, everyone, for participating for the questions. I hope you are all doing well, and we wish you a great 2023. And we will get back, talk to you as we close quarter one. Thank you. Have a good one.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

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