Not Yet Out of the Weeds: A-B Depletions Down Almost 14% in Q1

Dear Client: Anheuser-Busch has spoken about improvements for total portfolio share trends "each month since November ’23," as we wrote last week.   But in the just-reported Q1 results, it was another quarter of tough tallies for ABI's U.S. business.  Depletions were down 13.7% in the quarter, “primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light.” (Recall, depletions had been down 12.1% in the prior quarter). Shipments were down 10.1% (vs. 16.1% last quarter) as they “caught up with the stronger