Compañía Cervecerías Unidas S.A. (NYSE:CCU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Sorabh Daga : Thanks for giving me this space here. I have two questions, please, if I may. First, I mean, any comment on the premium side of the beer portfolio in Chile? And how have you viewing the segment prospect portfolio, especially when you look at brand Heineken and compared with some of the competitive brands like brand Corona? And then maybe a bit on revenue management side, right? Can you comment on how you’re managing the trade discounts and share some insights if the trade discount management has gotten better over the last few years? Or are you seeing the prospects to be on these lines?

Felipe Dubernet : So Sorabh, thank you for your question. Regarding the beer portfolio, in — especially in the big markets such as Argentina and Chile, we manage the full range of price points and positioning regarding different brands. So we are the leaders in draft in Chile, a very successful brand with and Also we are the leaders, if you are up in international brands with Heineken and So — and I would like to say the evolution of in Chile have been outstanding, gaining share, gaining volume, very good performance. And so and also Heineken is doing — it works, but at a lower rate of growth. On the other hand, we had a very good position in Royal which is a local entry premium brand, which also has had a tremendous growth all over the last 10 years, I would say, with very good brand equity.

And also the mainstream brands are preserving at least or even increasing in the last time the brand equity. So, we are very happy with the portfolio in beer and we are reaching in the — of the last 10 years, the highest brand equity that we measure through the preference of the consumer. And this is very important because this led us to your second question at the end, because when you have very strong brand equity, even if you do less promotions than competition, and you enhance your price efforts, you have more pricing power with a healthy portfolio in terms of the brand entity. And this is key. Despite what we do in terms of measuring promotion effectiveness of revenue management efforts, the key, and this is very important in our beer portfolio, is that we are entering the year with a very good brand equity level, which ensure us that we could maintain our price points and propositions and also, as a consequence, rationalize promotions and discounts.

Sorabh Daga : That answers, I mean on the revenue management side, just to follow up on the trade discounts. How about the premium — how about the mainstream and the soft drinks, too, if you can help us with.

Felipe Dubernet : Look, we have clear strategies for premium, mainstream, each brand has its role in a complex market as the Chilean one. So also, we do in each of the brands, a package strategy, with different price points and position. And overall, your question in soft drink is the same. Also, the brand equity in soft drinks is very healthy, especially with good evolution of Pepsi — so also, our brand equity in soft drinks help us also to design this price architecture and in order to have a healthy portfolio. And I’m talking at healthy portfolio is a portfolio where you need less promotions in order to be acquired to be bought by the consumer at the end. And this is a good advantage. So it’s the base of everything, the healthy of the brand, and we are brand-builders, not discounters.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mr. Henrique Brustolin from BTG Pactual.