Spain In a stable overall Spanish beer market the premium beers segment once again showed growth. The Heineken brand, which is the undisputed leader in premium beers, doubled its growth figure, far exceeding percentage growth rates for the segment. A new Heineken media campaign scored major successes and further increased brand-awareness. This favourable development improved El Aguila's sales-mix and offset lower sales volume for the Aguila-Amstel brand. Encouraging news was that our focused marketing is gradually improving the consumer image of the Aguila-Amstel brand. Murphy's Irish Stout, launched in 1996, has taken it's own place in the product portfolio. El Aguila's result improved to slightly positive. During the course of the year under review we exercised our rights to convert bonds into El Aguila shares. This increased our interest to 71% and confirmed the ongoing importance of the Spanish beer market to the Heineken Group. Further progress was made in controlling production costs and we started up multi-skilling training programmes at the breweries. These programmes will help improve the costs structure. The ISO 9002 quality certificate was once again awarded to El Aguila. t a I y Heineken Italia booked major progress with integration of the breweries acquired in 1995 and 1996. The new combination has realized a strong reinforcement of the market position. There was a considerable improvement in the result of the Italian operation. Notwithstanding the heavy burden of integration activities, the Italian organization increased beer sales and performed excellently in maintaining market share. The Heineken brand showed satisfactory growth while Heineken's market position was reinforced by a renewed media-campaign, the launch of the long-neck bottle, and sponsorship of the Umbria Jazz Festival. Moretti, one of Heineken Italia's strategic brands, also posted significant growth. The tournament between Italy's top clubs for the Birra Moretti Trophy attracted an extremely large TV audience and boosted brand-awareness. Dreher's volume decline over past years was halted, while its margins were improved. Optimization of market approach enabled us to reduce discounting, while the increase in net prices exceeded inflation and operating expenditure. We also realized a more even pattern of sales in Italy. The merging of the sales and marketing organizations went ahead as did that of the administration and other support services. The integration of distribution proceeds apace. The number of employees decreased. Restructuring of production facilities will be a primary factor over the next several years, and as part of this process we announced closure of the Crespellano and Baragiano breweries. Furthermore, 1998 will also see the end to brewing in Messina although bottling activities will be continued there. In a streamlined form the Pedavena brewery will be equipped for efficient production of specialty beers. As agreed under Italian anti-trust legislation the brewery in Udine was sold. Negotiations to take an interest in the brewery in Aosta by the local government are very well advanced. The sale of the loss-making Sarbe mineral water factory on Sardinia was completed in November. C reece Athenian Brewery, market leader in Greece, maintained its share of a growing beer market. Sales of Amstel, the country's top beer brand, increased further. The Heineken brand remained the undisputed leader in the premium segment. Sales of Ioli mineral water showed strong growth once again. Further modernization of the produc tion facilities was completed successfully, as were cost control measures. Both processes used benchmark information available within the Heineken Group. 9,167 million. Earnings again increased. HEINEKEN N. V. REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD 19 9 7 25

Jaarverslagen en Personeelsbladen Heineken

Jaarverslagen | 1997 | | pagina 41