Growth: Quality volume and mix with market share gains in subdued market conditions
▪ Total volume declined 1.2%, with consolidated volume down 2.1%, and licensed volume up 17.8%.
▪ Heineken® volume grew 2.7%, global brands volume grew 1.9%.
▪ Net revenue grew 1.6%, net revenue per hectolitre up 3.8%.
▪ Over 60% of our markets, including over 80% of our priority growth markets gaining or holding share.
▪ Marketing and selling expenses expanded to 9.9% of net revenue.
Profitability: Strong productivity gains enabling margin expansion
▪ Gross savings in excess of €500 million, with an increased flow-through to profit.
▪ Operating profit grew 4.4% with operating profit margin expanding 41 bps to 15.2%.
▪ Diluted Earnings per Share (EPS) of €4.78, up 3.6% (2024: €4.89).
Capital Efficiency: Another year of solid cash flow generation, with improved ROIC
▪ Free Operating Cash Flow of €2.6 billion, translating into a cash conversion ratio of 87%.
▪ Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) absolute increase of 57 bps to 22.7%, incl goodwill & intangibles up 21 bps to 9.4%.
▪ Completed first tranche of the €1.5 billion share buyback programme, second €750 million tranche to start shortly.
▪ Dividend of €1.90 per share proposed. Dividend payout policy to be expanded to the range of 30% to 50%.
2026: Accelerating the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030, integrating FIFCO
▪ Increasing investment in growth focused on global brands, faster innovation and sharper execution.
▪ Accelerating productivity at scale to unlock significant savings, reducing 5,000 to 6,000 roles over next two years.
▪ Integrating FIFCO beverage and retail businesses in Central America, expected to be immediately accretive to EPS.
▪ Anticipating FY2026 operating profit to grow in the range of 2% to 6%.
DOLF VAN DEN BRINK, CEO, COMMENTED:
“In 2025, we delivered a resilient and well-balanced performance. We gained share, drove cost and cash productivity, and increased investment behind our brands. Combined with agility and our advantaged footprint, this helped us navigate volatility and deliver within our guidance range. We reinforced our footprint through the acquisition of FIFCO in Central America, our largest acquisition in more than a decade, positioning us even more strongly for growth in the future.
As EverGreen 2025 concludes, we have made meaningful progress and advanced major transformations that strengthen our fundamentals. EverGreen 2030 builds on this with a sharper strategy, clearer resource allocation, and a stronger focus on value creation.
Now we pivot to the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030. Our first priority is to accelerate growth, funded by stepped up productivity and operating model changes that will involve a significant cost intervention over the next two years. This will unlock stronger people productivity and enable greater speed and efficiency. At the same time, we remain prudent in our near-term expectations for beer market conditions.”
OPERATIONAL REVIEW
Beer category dynamics varied meaningfully across our markets in 2025. In many of our key value and advancing markets, such as Vietnam, Ethiopia and South Africa, the category expanded, driven by rising penetration, growing consumption and continued premiumisation, all structural drivers of growth. Despite the macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainties, the Mexican beer category remained resilient and stable. Category momentum was impacted by predominantly cyclical factors in Brazil, where consumer demand weakened with declining real disposable income and withdrawal of government subsidies to lower income households. In Europe, the category declined due to a mix of cyclical factors, notably consumer price sensitivity and the temporary impact from customer negotiations.
Against this backdrop, we delivered strong financial results in many of our important growth markets. Vietnam, Myanmar, China, South Africa, and Ethiopia all recorded excellent growth, supported by disciplined execution and sustained investment behind our brands. In Europe, the UK stood out with a good performance in a challenging environment. These gains were partly offset by a market inventory adjustment and weaker volume in Brazil driven by softer than expected market conditions, and a decline in Cambodia. Retailer negotiations in Europe weighed on volume in the year, with an improved volume trajectory in the last quarter.
In the year, we accelerated our aggregated global market share. In over 60% of our markets, including over 80% of our priority growth markets, we gained or held share by improving the competitiveness of our portfolio, distributor and sales capabilities and data driven commercial execution. Our market share expanded in the Americas, Africa & Middle East, and Asia Pacific, more than offsetting the slight decline in Europe due to the aforementioned retailer disruptions.
Our brands continued to benefit from disciplined investment and strong consumer equity. Premium brands grew, with global brands growing faster still, and Heineken® and Amstel delivering the strongest growth. We invested in further strengthening our brands, with an increase in marketing and selling investment.
With volume pressure in some regions, our productivity programme was instrumental in driving organic profit growth and operating margin expansion. The Africa & Middle East region led the way, as the flow-through of savings delivered in this and past years came through strongly, helping to offset volatility in several other markets. As a result, despite the challenging macro-environment, we delivered within our operating profit guidance range for 2025.
We delivered another year of strong cash flow, solid cash conversion and an improvement in ROIC, underpinned by disciplined capital allocation and tighter working capital management.
FY2025 marked the conclusion of our EverGreen 2025 strategy, which has guided the transformation of our company, laying the groundwork for EverGreen 2030.
Accelerating the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030
We are moving at pace to deliver EverGreen 2030, focusing our resources, differentiating for growth, and maintaining proximity to consumers and customers, while leveraging our global scale and skills for significant productivity gains.
We are accelerating our growth engines by sharpening how we build brands, innovate, and execute commercially. Our Global Brands are adopting the proven Heineken® brand model, a repeatable, scalable approach that unlocks full value and ensures consistent execution globally, demonstrated powerfully by Amstel’s performance this past year. Building on our market share momentum, we are scaling innovation with three times as many launches and pilots across priority segments to meet evolving consumer needs. Freddyai, HEINEKEN’s enterprise AI-powered virtual marketing agency and brand-building platform, will become a core enabler of how we work more effectively and efficiently across markets and brands. Most markets will be onboarded by the end of 2026, covering about 80% of global marketing and selling investment. Together, these initiatives increase our speed, deepen consumer and customer relevance, and enable excellent execution at scale.
We are implementing a simpler, leaner HEINEKEN operating model, with empowered operating companies at the centre, close to consumers and customers. In selected geographies, we are transitioning to Multi-Market Operating Companies (MMOs), with four MMOs going live in Europe in the next six months. We will leverage our global scale and skills, including the accelerated expansion of our global supply networks and HEINEKEN Business Services (HBS). This is underpinned by a shift to a global Digital Backbone, our single digital infrastructure, and a smaller, more strategic Head Office.
To fund and sustain our growth priorities, we will also step up productivity through:
(i) Supply-chain optimisation, enabled by digitising breweries and selected brewery closures;
(ii) Exiting operating companies where there is no clear path to sustainable growth; and
(iii) Transitioning circa 3,000 roles to HBS, doubling its scale and expanding the services it provides to markets.
Taken together, through the productivity step-up, ongoing operating company optimisation, and the transition to MMOs we expect to reduce our global workforce by approximately 5,000 to 6,000 roles1 over the next two years. We will support impacted colleagues with care, respect, and appropriate assistance. Timelines will vary by market, subject to local circumstances and processes.
These actions are designed to deliver the €400 to €500 million of annual gross savings outlined at our Capital Markets Day, enabling further investment in our brands and capabilities while supporting healthy operating profit growth