Last week, Brown-Forman posted its latest quarterly figures, bringing the curtain down on the third-quarter results reporting season for 2025.
The Jack Daniel’s owner’s -2% sales performance in the three months to the end of October landed almost exactly in the middle of the 17 companies in Global Drinks Intel‘s results coverage*. Despite this, the company sat among the majority in decline: Of the 15 publicly-listed alcohol brand owners, nine were down year-on-year in sales terms.
* Australian Vintage and Treasury Wine Estates, which also feature in Global Drinks Intel’s results coverage, do not appear in the following charts as both companies report their results on a six- rather than a three-month basis. Also, Brown-Forman’s Q3 numbers are from August to October – its fiscal Q2 – while Constellation Brands’ are from June to August.
Before we move to the unpleasantness that was Q3 2025, here’s a look – for scale – at the sales numbers from the three months to the end of September (to October for Brown-Forman, to August for Constellation).
Turning now to year-on-year movement, and Viña Concha y Toro’s position at the top of the pile comes with the usual disclaimer; the Chile-headquartered wine company’s results are in reported terms, which includes the impact of currency fluctuations across its market presence. That said, while an outlier in the quarter at +8.1% versus the same period in 2024, Concha y Toro’s performance represented its eighth consecutive quarter of increasing sales.
Only four others placed in positive territory – all at low to mid-single-digit levels – led by Campari Group’s relatively healthy +4.4%. Building on a dip in sales in the first quarter of this year, the company was in upbeat mood in late October thanks to Q2 and Q3’s rises. Speaking to Global Drinks Intel at the time, CEO Simon Hunt credited the latest results to the group’s employees “working their backsides off in a very tough environment”.
“It’s encouraging to see a determination within the Camparista community, which I have to admit is a bit different from what I’ve seen before,” he added.
Two of Campari’s spirits peers also posted growth – just – with Moët Hennessy achieving a 1% lift and Proximo Spirits just behind at +0.9%. Brewing giant AB InBev joined the Jose Cuervo tequila operator on the same rate of quarterly growth and led the beer fraternity, all the rest of whom booked negative sales.
Special mention for – and an element of credit to – Diageo is required: Having weathered the turbulence created by the departure of CEO Debra Crew near the beginning of the quarter, a flat showing in Q3 (the group’s Q1 of fiscal 2026) should not be sniffed at. It also levels the playing field for Crew’s replacement, Dave Lewis, who assumes the leadership role on 1 January.
From here on in, however, things get pretty bleak.
The next six brand owners in our results coverage are split between brewers and spirits producers; Heineken and Carlsberg were both ahead of Molson Coors Beverage Co in beer for the quarter, with the latter admitting just over a month ago that it is “moving with a sense of urgency and a clear purpose“. Indeed, Molson Coors will be one to watch in the coming months if the pronouncements made by Rahul Goyal since he became CEO on 1 October are anything to go by.
There was a whiff of defiance emanating from Paris in mid-October, when Pernod Ricard countered its -7.6% top-line performance in the three months with a more positive mid-term forecast for sales. While fiscal years 2027 to 2029 are expected to deliver mid-single-digit rises, however, the Absolut owner stopped short of predicting how its fiscal 2026 (to June next year) will fare.
Just ahead of a trio of double-digit declines is Constellation Brands, whose US licence for the Modelo beer portfolio of brands had long boosted its overall sales – until now. At 8% down in calendar Q3, the company’s sales stand at -6% in the first half of its current fiscal year. For H2, a low single-digit dip in sales is forecast from the beer division, suggesting hard yards in the months ahead for the group.
Those aforementioned double-digit falls in the three-month period came from France, for Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits, the US, for The Boston Beer Co, and a combination of China and the US for Rémy Cointreau. Similar to Molson Coors and its new CEO, Rémy set a similar scene late last month, as Franck Marilly outlined the outcome of a “diagnostic” he’d been running since taking the reins in late-June.
“It is time to challenge the way we think and operate,” Marilly said two weeks ago. Given this set of brand owner performances, he could have been referring to the alcohol industry as a whole.
