By Ian Walker


Anheuser-Busch InBev SA on Thursday raised the bottom end of its full-year Ebitda guidance as it reported a market-beating third-quarter net profit and its best quarterly volume performance.

The brewer--which houses the Stella Artois and Budweiser brands among its portfolio--said volumes grew 3.7% organically, beating a consensus of 2.2%, taken from the company's website. Within this, North America volumes fell 1.3%.

The company attributed the rise to an accelerated digital transformation and continued consumer demand for its brand portfolio.

AB InBev made a net profit for the quarter of $1.43 billion compared with $250 million for the same period a year earlier and a consensus of $1.41 billion, taken from FactSet.

Revenue for the period was $15.09 billion compared with $14.27 billion for the third quarter of 2021. Revenue grew 12.1% on an organic basis compared with a consensus of 10.2%, according to a company-provided consensus.

Normalized earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization--one of the company's preferred metrics, which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--for the quarter rose to $5.31 billion from $5.21 billion, up 6.5% on an organic basis.

Normalized Ebitda consensus was $5.34 billion while revenue was $15.12 billion, according to FactSet estimates.

AB InBev raised the bottom end of its organic Ebitda growth range to 6%-8% compared with previous guidance for a rise of 4% to 8% for 2022, and reiterated that it expects revenue to grow ahead of Ebitda.


Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

10-27-22 0132ET