Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Kenneth Goldman: I may have missed this, but did you guys by any chance to talk about your expectation of price versus volume mix this year? I recognize it’s not something you typically give in guidance, but I’m just trying to get a sense for how to model that a little bit cleaner just given some of the puts and takes?

Dirk Van de Put: So I’ll give you a little bit of a high-level answer. And the answer is, we have planned for modest volume contribution into 2023, and quite frankly, that is the direct outcome of us planning for historical elasticities rather than what we have seen as of recent. So there might be a little bit of an upside versus that assumption. As you dissect the business a little bit more, I believe you’re going to see good volume growth in emerging markets, particularly in countries like China, India, Brazil and so on and so forth. You are going to see volume growth in North America. Clearly, there is an element of us replenish in stock with the trade that has a positive impact. But importantly, I think U.S. biscuit is really on solid ground and all the ventures, namely €“ Give & Go and paid particularly are really delivering volume growth versus last year.

And finally, where I think you’re going to see volume pressure is in Europe, and that is the direct outcome of potential customer negotiation disruption and relatively higher elasticity than in other places in the world. So volume leverage, I think, will be one important component of the 2023 P&L shape. Three regions, I believe, will be on positive ground in Europe due to disruption, there might be some volume pressure. Overall, I think you’re going to see modest volume growth for the year.

Kenneth Goldman: Very helpful. If I can just ask a quick follow-up. You talked about partly the reason for losing share in 2022 was because of your European customer disruptions, are your competitors not being disrupted as much? I’m just curious, are they not pricing up as much as you? Is it more of a timing issue? It just feels like if everyone’s pricing up, maybe there shouldn’t be share loss, but I’m missing part of that perhaps?

Luca Zaramella: Yes. Well, we have to take into account that our main competitors in Europe are private companies. And what we’ve seen is that they have not priced as aggressively as we have. We assume that, that eventually will have to come, but that is the main difference between us and competition. And so that is the explanation of the share loss. Some of the €“ the other competitors have had some events that they lapped of the year before, and that has helped them also to gain some share this year. So those are the two big reasons.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Chris Growe with Stifel. Your line is open.

Christopher Growe: Hi, good evening. Thank you.

Dirk Van de Put: Hi, Chris.

Christopher Growe: I just had a question for you €“ hi €“ on €“ just a follow-up on Europe. If you look at 2022 fiscal 2022, were you able to get pricing up in line with inflation in Europe? And I guess I’m trying to understand if you look at 2023, is there any sort of catch up in pricing you expect in Europe, if that’s possible, which may sort of compound some of these issues with share there?