Finance
Carlsberg half-year profits miss expectations, warns of tough year
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on August 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on August 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Carlsberg's half-year profits fell short, with shares dropping 6%. The brewer expects a challenging year ahead, despite slightly raising profit guidance.
By Emma Rumney
LONDON (Reuters) -Carlsberg missed half-year profit and volume forecasts on Thursday and warned it did not expect the consumer environment to improve in the rest of 2025, sending the Danish brewer's shares down 6% in early trading.
The latest report by the world's third-largest brewer - behind Anheuser-Busch InBev and Heineken - was received with similar pessimism to those of its rivals in recent weeks as investors sent shares declining.
While Carlsberg, which makes Kronenbourg 1664, Tuborg and Somersby, raised the bottom end of its annual profit guidance, that did not offset slower-than-expected first-half operating profit growth of 2.3%, and a 1.7% decline in volumes.
CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen said on a media call that the brewer's performance was strong in a difficult year, and that it anticipated slightly better volume growth in the second half.
Still, he wasn't optimistic on consumer spending, which was being reined in by price increases and uncertainty, adding: "There is no indication as we move into the second half that that's going to change."
Big brewers have been battling reduced demand, the impact of U.S. tariffs and poor weather, and their weak performance or volume expectations have left investors fretting over growth prospects.
Carlsberg now expects annual operating profit growth of 3% to 5%, compared with 1% to 5% before. However, analysts already expected 4% growth, according to Edward Mundy, analyst at Jefferies, so this change did not significantly move the needle.
"Carlsberg has continued the trend set by ABI and Heineken of underwhelming H1 results," said James Edwardes Jones, analyst at RBC Capital Markets, adding Carlsberg's performance in Asia was weak. China is Carlsberg's largest market.
Half-year operating profit was 7.23 billion Danish crowns ($1.13 billion), against analyst expectations for 7.35 billion crowns.
($1 = 6.3777 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Emma Rumney;Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Bernadette Baum)
Carlsberg reported half-year operating profit of 7.23 billion Danish crowns, which fell short of analyst expectations of 7.35 billion crowns.
Carlsberg warned that it does not expect the consumer environment to improve for the remainder of 2025, indicating continued challenges.
Carlsberg raised the bottom end of its annual profit guidance to an expected growth of 3% to 5%, compared to the previous forecast of 1% to 5%.
Big brewers, including Carlsberg, are battling reduced demand, the impact of U.S. tariffs, and poor weather, which have affected their growth prospects.
Analysts noted that Carlsberg's results were in line with the trend of underwhelming half-year results seen from other major brewers like ABI and Heineken.
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