Ambev Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Ambev delivered margin improvement, with consolidated normalized EBITDA margin up 50 basis points to 33.4% (third consecutive year of expansion) and Brazil Beer EBITDA margin up 110 bps, driven by net revenue per hectoliter growth, productivity and disciplined SG&A.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management reinforced aggressive capital returns, announcing approximately BRL 20 billion (dividends, interest on capital and a BRL 2.5 billion buyback) and reporting BRL 21.7 billion returned to shareholders in cash in 2025.
  • Positive Sentiment: Digital and delivery businesses scaled meaningfully—BEES Marketplace GMV grew ~70% with 3.5pp gross margin improvement, and Zé Delivery closed the year at BRL 4.7 billion GMV, 67 million orders and 27 million annual active users, strengthening access to younger consumers.
  • Negative Sentiment: Volumes were pressured across markets—Brazil beer volumes were weak for most of 2025 due to weather-driven declines in out‑of‑home occasions (October was the biggest drag), although the company reported sequential recovery and a low single-digit Nielsen sellout share gain in Q4.
  • Negative Sentiment: Cost pressures persist into 2026 with guidance for Brazil beer cash COGS per hectoliter to rise 4.5%–7.5%, driven mainly by commodities (notably aluminum) and portfolio mix, which could constrain margin upside if volume recovery lags.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Ambev Q4 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Good afternoon, and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to Ambev's 2025 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Carlos Lisboa, Ambev's CEO, and Mr. Guilherme Fleury, CFO and Investor Relations Officer. As a reminder, this conference presentation is available for download on our website, ir.ambev.com.br, as well as through the webcast link. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After Ambev's remarks are completed, there will be a Q&A section, during which we kindly ask that each participant's sell side analysts ask only one question. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996.

Operator

Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Ambev's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events, and therefore depends on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Ambev and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. I would also like to remind everyone that, as usual, the percentage changes that will be discussed during today's call are both organic and normalized in nature, and unless otherwise stated, percentage changes refer to comparison with 2024 fourth quarter and full year results.

Operator

Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items, which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of Ambev normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company disclosed the consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit, and EBITDA on a fully reported basis in the earnings release.

Operator

Now, I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Carlos Lisboa. Mr. Lisboa, you may begin your conference.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. As we close the year, here is the message I hope you take away today: We made meaningful progress on the mission we set from day one, even in a dynamic context that stress-tested our strategy. Here is how we progressed. First, avoiding disruptions. We built on a strong foundation and maintained execution consistency across the company. Through active listening, we protected what was working and implemented improvements without destabilizing the organization. Second, keeping momentum. Over the course of the year, we advanced quarter by quarter on different fronts, finishing the year with a better performance for 2026. Third, building a stronger company. We avoided changing directions with the context. We advanced simultaneously on the three pillars of our strategy, because that is where our differentiation comes from.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

This is what we mean by being ambidextrous, and it is building a flywheel that strengthens each year and sustain our performance over time. As a result, we ended 2025 stronger than we started. We strengthened our portfolio, got closer to our customers and consumers, and advanced profitability. Volumes, however, were pressured by the environment, and that matters because it frames our ambition for what comes next. To use a simple analogy, 2025 was a tough season to play. With a wet pitch, cold weather, and a game that kept changing, it forced us to build muscle, resilience, and adaptability, and it strengthened our collective ownership as a team. Just as important, that strengthening showed up in our people.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

In a demanding year, employees' confidence in our future increased, driving engagement indicators to all-time highs, back to post-pandemic peak levels, and reinforcing that our culture truly stands out in challenging moments. All that means we are coming out better prepared for the next season, which in 2026 happens to be the FIFA World Cup, a big passion point in our markets. So let me touch on another passion, beer. What we saw in 2025 reinforces our view that the headwinds were primarily cyclical and occasion-driven, not a sudden change in beer fundamentals. A strong proof point is this: the most engaged consumers, our beer lovers, got closer to the category, and the category equity strengthened over the year. In other words, beer continues to be loved, culturally relevant and deeply connected to socialization across our markets, where it holds a high share of alcoholic beverages.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

We continue to see meaningful runway ahead. The category has headroom to expand, supported by favorable demographics in Latin America, and grow through occasions development, both out of home and at home, and through a broader portfolio that addresses trends and needs, recruiting new consumers. Simply put, what changed in 2025 was not whether consumers want beer, but how often the right moments happen. Now, let me connect that to our strategy. Under pillar one, as the category captain, our job is to bridge the gap between beer's potential and actual consumption, fostering category growth. In 2025, we led where the category expanded the most: premium, balanced choices, and non-alcoholic. We elevated the core segment through innovation and investments, while building adjacencies like flavored beers.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

That leads us to our pillar two, where we are using data and technology to shape our own future and stay ahead of the curve, strengthening the core business while building new growth engines. On the B2B side, our priority is to go deep with BEES as an enabler to make the core business stronger, helping us win through better execution at the point of sale. Our ecosystem is built on the idea that the better our customers perform, the better we perform. That is why we are embedding digital sellout activation tools powered by our data and insights, benchmarking what works across points of sale, and translating it into sharper activation and portfolio recommendations.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Also, BEES Marketplace continues to scale, with full-year GMV growing 70%, driven by 3P expansion and gross margin up 3.5 percentage points versus last year, reinforcing both relevance and improving economics. On the consumer side, Zé Delivery closed 2025 with all-time high performance, delivering BRL 4.7 billion in GMV, up 13% versus last year, 67 million orders and 27 million yearly active users, up 11% versus last year, consolidating its position as one of the major convenience platforms in Brazil. Strategically, Zé put us close to young adult consumers, with nearly 80% of buyers, either Gen Z or millennials, and it accelerates both execution and our test and learn innovation loop. It is our foot in the future. And this bring us to our third pillar, the muscle that makes the other two pillars scalable.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

In 2025, we set a clear ambition: to expand Ambev's consolidated EBITDA margin again. Despite industry softness and the effects and commodity headwinds, we delivered a meaningful evolution from top to bottom line. That came from thoughtful choices on resource allocation, revenue management, productivity, and expenses governance, while sustaining brand investment. That discipline translated into delivery. At the consolidated level, we expanded organic EBITDA margin by 50 basis points, marking our third consecutive year of margin expansion, and by 110 basis points in Brazil Beer, and that reinforced our confidence in capital allocation.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Consistent with our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders over time, we announced approximately BRL 20 billion in shareholder returns in 2025, the highest in our history, through BRL 13.2 billion in dividends, BRL 4.2 billion in interest on capital, and a new BRL 2.5 billion share buyback program. We are starting the year paying the first BRL 1.2 billion tranche of the IOC declared by year-end. Now, let me give a quick overview across our footprint. In 2025, we grew EBITDA across all our business units, and we expanded EBITDA margin in 4/5. In Brazil Beer, full-year volumes were in line with a soft industry, and our performance reflected two different halves. Our revenue management initiatives weighed on share in the first half.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

As conditions improved in the second half, market share expanded meaningfully in Q4, as weather sequentially recovered, so did our volumes. October was the main drag, and we returned to growth in December. For the quarter, we delivered a low single-digit market share gain in Nielsen sell out. We continue to lead where the category is expanding the most. Premium and super premium volumes increased high teens, and we closed the year as leaders in the segment, reflecting stronger portfolio brand equity. Our balanced choices brands grew high 60s, and non-alcohol grew around 30%, as we continue to expand leadership and unlock incremental occasions. In the quarter, we delivered 100% of the Brazilian beer industry's growth in premium and non-alcohol, according to our estimates and Nielsen sell out data. In the core segment, softness was more pronounced, given its higher reliance on out-of-home socialization.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

We are sustaining its recovery through stronger trade activation, marketing campaigns, and continued innovation, and we started to see progress with market share gains in Q4. In Brazil NAB, during 2025, the disciplined execution of our strategy and resource allocation supported an EBITDA growth with margin expansion. At the same time, Guaraná Antarctica's equity improved, showcasing the strength of the brand. In the first half, volume, momentum, and commercial execution supported market share gains, despite margin pressure, given higher costs. In the second half, the CSD industry decelerated amid the same cyclical drivers that impacted beer, and price relativity became less favorable following our revenue management decisions, resulting in market share pressure while delivering a better profitability profile. In Argentina, the macro environment continued to improve, with lower inflation and less FX volatility.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

The consumption recovery, however, is taking longer than we expected and continued to weigh on results in 2025. Still, performance improved sequentially throughout the year, with a more balanced dynamic between top line and bottom line in the fourth quarter, supported by tighter execution and revenue management. Looking ahead, we remain constructive on a gradual recovery as the consumption environment improves. In the Dominican Republic, the consumption environment also improved sequentially through the year, despite a weather-related disruption in Q4. In this context, beer gained share of alcoholic beverage in full year, supported by healthier dynamic between categories, while Presidente's brand health reached all-time highs. In Canada, we outperformed both beer and beyond beer industries, supported by our beer mega brands and continued beyond beer momentum, while maintaining disciplined cost execution and delivering EBITDA margin expansion.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

With that, I will now turn it over to Fleury.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Thank you, Lisboa, and hello, everyone. As we entered 2025, we made it clear that this would be another year focused on long-term value creation through disciplined execution of our capital allocation framework. In a dynamic operating environment, we focus on what we can control and delivered another year of normalized EBITDA growth with margin expansion, EPS growth, resilient cash generation, and a higher capital return to our shareholders. Let me walk you through our financial performance for the year, starting with the margin improvement dynamics. We closed 2025 delivering consolidated normalized EBITDA margin expansion of 50 basis points, reaching 33.4%, mainly driven by three factors. First, net revenue per hectoliter growth of 7.5%, supported by stronger brands, revenue management strategy, and continued premiumization across our portfolio, leading to net revenue per hectoliter growth across all of our business units.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Second, financial discipline. Consolidated cash COGS per hectoliter performance benefited from productivity initiatives and operational efficiencies across our industrial and logistics operations. Brazil Beer is a clear proof point. Despite the cost headwinds anticipated at the beginning of the year and the operational deleveraging associated with lower volumes, our cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding non-Ambev marketplace products, increased by 6.1% in 2025, at the lowest quartile of our guidance. And third, efficient resource allocation. In SG&A, we continue to invest behind our brands while keeping total cash SG&A growth under control. Now moving to below EBITDA lines. We closed the year with almost BRL 4 billion in net financial expenses, mainly explained by FX variation losses related to foreign currency denominated assets, and the BRL appreciation, coupled with expenses related to sourcing U.S. dollars in Bolivia.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

In terms of income taxes, our effective tax rate for the year was 17.7%, reflecting some one-off effects, mainly from Q3, such as the Barbados divestment, the partial reversal of tax liabilities associated with the 2017 Brazilian tax amnesty program, and certain effects related to tax credits. Absent such one-offs, our consolidated effective tax rate would have been approximately 20% for the year. As a result, stated net income reached almost BRL 16 billion, with stated EPS increasing 8.2% year-on-year, while normalized EPS increased by 2% in the year. Now, turning to cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities remained solid and total BRL 24.5 billion, BRL 1.6 billion lower than last year, mainly due to softer volumes that impacted working capital.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Cash flow consumed in investing activities totaled approximately BRL 5 billion, mainly driven by CapEx investments, broadly in line with last year. Cash flow consumed in financing activities amounted to BRL 26.8 billion, driven by shareholder payouts and the completion of our 2024 share buyback program. In total, we returned BRL 21.7 billion to shareholders on a cash basis, meaning that approximately 90% of our operating cash flow was returned to shareholders in 2025. And reinforcing our commitment to sustainable long-term value creation, our return on invested capital continued to be meaningfully above our weighted average cost of capital and improved in 2025, driven by NOPAT margin. For 2026, we remain consistent towards our capital allocation priorities of, one, reinvesting in our organic growth to keep supporting the development of pillar 1 and pillar 2 of our strategy.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Two, maintaining a disciplined approach towards M&A opportunities. And three, consistently return excess cash to shareholders over time. In terms of costs, in 2026, we expect Brazil Beer cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding non-Ambev marketplace products, to increase between 4.5% and 7.5%, driven primarily by commodity prices, aluminum in particular, and portfolio mix, with higher cost pressures anticipated in the first half of the year. At the same time, we remain focused on identifying opportunities and enhancing efficiency as we continue to pursue our ambition of expanding consolidated margin over time. And before handing it back to Lisboa, I would like to share a team update. Patrick Conrad, a seasoned finance professional, is joining our investor relations team, succeeding Guilherme Yokaichiya. Yoka, in turn, will transition to a fully dedicated position, leading Ambev's treasury team.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Yoka for the outstanding work he has done leading Ambev's Investor Relations team over the past five years, and to wish both continued success in their new roles.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Now, back to you, Lisboa.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Thank you, Fleury. As I reflect about 2025, it was another year marked by a very dynamic operating environment, and that strengthened our ability to read and adapt to market changes. 2026 will certainly bring its own dynamics, but it is also shaping up to be a promising year for socialization, and those moments have already started. Carnival is underway, not only in Brazil, but across several of our Latin American markets. From there, we begin to warm up for the FIFA World Cup, the biggest edition on record in favorable time zones for our footprint, creating another interesting backdrop for people to come together. On top of that, in Brazil, a holiday-rich calendar adds several long weekends throughout the year, creating additional occasions for socialization. In this context, I want to leave you with three reminders.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

First, beer is a loved category in Latin America with strong fundamentals, and that strength comes with the headroom for growth, giving its versatility to address consumer strengths and needs. Second, we as a company are advancing simultaneously on our three strategic pillars, strengthening a flywheel we can compound year after year. And third, we enter 2026 as a stronger company with momentum carryover, and how we navigated 2025 was another proof point that our culture stands out in times like this. And none of this happens without our people. I want to close by thanking our teams across all markets for their ownership, adaptability, and execution through a very demanding year, and for the energy they are bringing into 2026.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

With that, let me hand it over to the operator.

Operator

We will now begin the Q&A section. To ask a question, we kindly ask sell-side analysts to click on Raise Hand button at the bottom of the screen. To remove a question from the queue or after your question has been addressed, please click Lower Hand button. We kindly reinforce our request that each participant ask only a single question. Our first question comes from Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein. Please, Mrs. Sarwat, your microphone's open.

Nadine Sarwat
Nadine Sarwat
Equity Research Analyst at Bernstein

Yes. Hello, everybody. I'd like to double-click on Brazil. So firstly, you know, great seeing that commentary about December beer, beer volumes being in growth. Can you unpack that a little bit, the magnitude factors behind that? Was it all weather, or were there any other favorable shifts? And are you able to comment any trends in January? Following up to that, secondly, Brazil NAB. I know you guys called out your revenue management strategy as a reason behind the volume decline. Can you add some color as to what the exact decisions were that resulted in that decline, and then what can we expect for volumes in 2026? Thank you.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Hey, Nadine, nice to talk to you again. Lisboa here. Look, I'm gonna follow the protocol, right? I'm gonna get the first answer. Regarding Brazil Beer, to your point about what are the drivers, right? So quickly reminder, what happened last year made 2025 like an outlier year for the beer industry in Brazil. You know, prior to that, 10 years time, 5 years time, 3 years time, you know, there was consistent growth and pretty much driven by, you know, favorable demographics, right? And disposable income increase. Last year, and we mentioned that during the, you know, the result announcements, right, what we saw was, you know, inclement weather impacting mostly the wintertime and, you know, boosted by the La Niña, right, phenomenon that somehow made the winter go deeper and longer in the second half.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

And that, you know, created unfavorable type of situation for beer because impacted the most an occasion, an out-of-home occasions that are, you know, where the, the beer, category volume, you know, resides, right? So that's the reason why we saw the impact. Obviously, was not an easy situation for us to manage, right? As I said before, it was the first time that we saw such a, you know, a strong impact in our industry. But I think the team, you know, put all the emphasis behind things that we could control. And by doing so, we kept evolving quarter by quarter. And when the weather changed, right, during the last quarter of last year, we were ready, right, to ride together with the more favorable weather impacting the demand again. And this is exactly how the situation went through, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

In October, pretty much the month represented the vast majority of our decline in the quarter, year over year. We got to a better position in November, and then in December, when you combine the better weather with the market share gain that we got in the—you know, in the, in the final round, the final quarter of the year, which represent around, you know, a low single digit in sellout data growth, that explains, you know, the, the positive territory that we landed. I won't go into the details about, you know, the first quarter of this year, but what, what I can say, Nadine, is the following: actually, that weather, right, pretty much, you know, came into the first round of this year, the first month of this year.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

What puts, you know, in a year-over-year comparison, the weather impact as neutral, which is important for us. Thank you.

Nadine Sarwat
Nadine Sarwat
Equity Research Analyst at Bernstein

Perfect. Thank you.

Analyst

Sustaining and even improving profitability in 2025. You ended up doing that. There was an impressive performance on the SG&A, especially distribution costs. I would just like to get your thoughts about how you are thinking about this going into 2026, right? When you think about the hedging that you have for Brazil Beer, as well as the room for additional efficiencies, how you see all of that shaping up for the year? Thank you.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Hi. Thank you, Henrique. Fleury here. Can you hear me well? Just checking the mic here on my end.

Analyst

Yes, I can.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Oh, great. So let me start with how we put your question. I think 2025, just to recap, was really a year that when we started, we saw important Cash COGS pressure. I'm talking about Brazil beer. That's why you have given a guidance last year of 5.5%-8.5%. And we have done here a series of, I would say, projects, looking to different lines of our P&L. As I said in my speech, we focus on the industrial side, we focus on the distribution, always privileging the investment behind our brands, because that is what we need to continue to focus to make pillar one and pillar two work better.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

By a series of implementation of these strategies, we are happy that we landed on the 6.1, which was the first quartile of our guidance. Okay? Now, when we look into 2026, I think there are two things that remain the same. One is we need to continue to work very hard on the initiatives. We need to continue to make it very focused on our side to with our ambition of coming with another year of margin expansion, and we are already doing that as we started the year.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

When we do our analysis, when you look into the costs, our hedging, which is known as speculative, when you look at the commodities, so on and so forth, we are giving the guidance to the market of 4.5%-7.5% for the full year of 2026, which is midpoint broadly in line with what we have done, in 2025. That is pressured, as I said in my speech, from commodities, aluminum in particular, and portfolio mix. But bear in mind that we will continue to work very hard. It's our job here to do the work and probably throughout the year, come narrowing or come with news on here. So far, that is the guidance that we have.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Henrique, Lisboa here, just to complement, Fleury. You can imagine that nobody here worked. We were not expecting such a, you know, challenging context in terms of volume drop for the industry, especially here in Brazil, right? So that put a lot of, you know, stress on our, you know, ambition to protect margins, right, for Ambev again. And I think, you know, last year was, that's the reason why we said it was a stress test for us, right? Because if we could, you know, somehow overcome the effects, overcome commodities, and on top of that, overcome the lack of, you know, our lack of capacity to dilute costs without having the volumes, right? That give us confidence, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Somehow, I think, you know, the obstacle made us, you know, develop internally, right, the right muscles to be prepared for another round, but in a way better shape, in my point of view, right? So again, it was not a training season for us; it was already a hard game last year, and I think it was good, you're right, to test and be prepared for what's coming.

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

You too.

Operator

Our next question comes from Gustavo Troiano from Itaú BBA. Please, Mr. Troiano, your microphone's open.

Gustavo Troiano
Analyst at Itaú BBA

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. My question relates to capital allocation, and how should we think about your approach towards dividends throughout the year? Last year, you paid interim dividends on a quarterly basis, but just wanted to touch base on how you're thinking about the policy for this year, not only in terms of the final payout target, but also on the timing of the distributions throughout the year. It would be nice to understand if we should expect dividends being concentrated towards the end of the year, as we were used to see until 2024, or if there is something new towards this discussion. Thank you very much.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Oh, thank, thank you for the question. Let me just start highlighting, you know, again, what we have done in 2025. I think you have seen a very proactive discussion that we have had with Lisboa and our board here to make sure that we're able to change the payout or return to shareholders on a consistently basis, quarter after quarter on last year. On this quarter, or the beginning of this quarter, Lisboa just mentioned on his beginning introduction, that we're also being part of the IOC, that we've approved with the board at the end of 2025. I cannot--this is not a guidance, I cannot tell you, you know, how that will come over the year, but what I can say as a CFO, that we continue to have every quarter discussions.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

We continue to look into our cash position, the cash generation on our side, taking into consideration always the three points of our capital allocation: invest in organic growth, look into selective M&A, and deliver sustainable shareholder return over time.

Gustavo Troiano
Analyst at Itaú BBA

Thank you.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte from BTG Pactual. Please, Mr. Duarte, your microphone's open.

Thiago Duarte
Analyst at BTG Pactual

Yeah, hello, Lisboa, Fleury. Yeah, in my question, I wanted to circle back to some of the topics I think we discussed a year ago, right after the return of both of you to Ambev, and things that are related to the strategic vision that you shared with us at the time. I wanted to comment, if possible, in light of not only the quarter, but I think 2025 results as a whole. The first one is to you, Lisboa, when you referred to make, I remember a year ago, bigger investments in the core brands as part of your analogy of making the company more ambidextrous and fostering the category growth.

Thiago Duarte
Analyst at BTG Pactual

You mentioned briefly about elevating the core in your initial remarks, but when we look at the beer portfolio and the way it performed throughout the year, it appears that was premium, not the core, that really stood out. So I wanted to hear how you think core stands a year later in terms of potential, or whether you think it will continue to be gradually eclipsed by the premium brands, and the portfolio will be somewhat transitioning more into premium and core losing relevance. So that would be the first of the topics we discussed a year ago. And the second one is related to the portfolio itself.

Thiago Duarte
Analyst at BTG Pactual

You know, you know, in the past, I don't know, five or six years, Ambev made lots of investments in innovation, introduced many new brands, you repositioned the pricing, and obviously, I think this led to higher costs and expenses to support that expansion, right? And I remember a year ago, you mentioning that you believe the portfolio was stronger, and it was time to reap the benefits of this investment. So, on the question of the SG&A dilution, whether you think what we saw this year is really related to that, and obviously, the sustainability of that going forward, which you mentioned a little bit before in a previous question. So those will be the points. Thank you.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Hey, Thiago, nice to connect to you again. Look, one of the feedbacks we got from you all was about, you know, following the protocol, one answer only, so I'm gonna get the first one. Okay, the first question. So based on the core, you know, question, what is the core role here, you know, for us? And I continue with my point of view, Thiago, regarding, you know, us being a company capable of managing ends, right? Not only one side of the portfolio partition, right? Especially because, you know, the part that you are, you know, alluding to, the core, it is the stronger part of the image, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

And if, when you take in consideration, right, the majority of the population in Brazil still rely pretty much on one minimum salary. The core has a meaningful play, you know, to gain, right, in the game, because, you know, it promotes accessibility to the category. On top of that, right, Brazil is composed by different regions. Those regions, it's very interesting. I think I never told you that, but one of the things that caught my attention is how cyclical, right, the portfolio is per region. So some places in Brazil that used to be a Brahma place, today is an Antarctica place. Another one is a Skol place. And at a point in time, I told you guys, Skol is still a, you know, a very relevant brand in several states of Brazil.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Here in São Paulo, for instance, right? So it's critical for us to protect, right, that strength that our company has, the category has, because somehow these brands, they represent the category. And there's plenty room for us to make these brands very relevant in the future. How? Take for, you know, as an example, what we are doing as we speak with Skol. We just brought to the game a new brand variant, which is the Skol Zero Zero. We are not just following, right, the zero trend, we are doing so with, you know, novelty, because this, you know, brand, you know, extension brings something different from the others: zero alcohol, zero sugar. And this is the way, one of the ways we keep, right, these brands relevant for our consumers in the future, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

It's interesting because when you do so, when you find a way to be really ambidextrous, right, is when you see, you know, the full potential coming to life. I'm gonna give one example, which is, you know, the last quarter of last year, right? This is when we saw the full potential for our portfolio coming to play. Because, you know, the share gain not only came from the new positions, being premium, being no alcohol, or being balanced, it came from the core as well. And coincidentally or not, this was the time when we started to see Skol also, right, stabilizing and gaining momentum, especially in those states where we put more emphasis behind the brand, right? So, and as a consequence, our share improved not only through the segments, but also through the channels, and also through regions in Brazil.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

This is what we want, because we believe that our strength relies on the portfolio strength, and this is the game we wanna play, right? The core side of the business plays a very meaningful role there, right?

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

As well, if we can just add like one thing here, Thiago, quickly is, I think connected with the strength of our portfolio, core was more impacted by, I would say, weather-impacted occasions, which were not fundamentally impacting the category. And with the other side of the portfolio, we led where the category expanded, and that's where we came with the bulk of the growth in premium and zero in Brazil.

Thiago Duarte
Analyst at BTG Pactual

That's clear. Thank you.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Thank you, man.

Operator

Our next question comes from Renata Cabral from Citi. Please, Mrs. Cabral, your microphone's open.

Renata Cabral
Renata Cabral
Analyst at Citigroup

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my question. My question is related to GLP-1 drugs and the potential impact on the company's portfolio. We are seeing the discussion a lot developed in the U.S. Of course, the penetration of the drug has been much higher than in Brazil. So my question for you is, the weakness of the portfolio this year somehow can be attributed to that? And more than that, since in March, one of the patents will expire in Brazil, so the usage can expand in 2026 or maybe 2027. What is the expectations of impact in the portfolio and what the company is working to mitigate that and offer other options to consumers, not only in beer, but also in the NAB portfolio? Thank you.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Hey, Renata, thank you for the question. I think it's always important to, you know, go back to 2025 in order to really understand what happened. There are two different kinds of impact. One is attitudinal change, the other one is behavioral change, right? What happened last year was a change on the behavioral side due to the weather, mostly, okay? When you have bad weather, right, when you have colder and longer wintertime, the most important drinking occasion in Brazil, which is the out-of-home, among friends, sharing beer, is the one mostly impacted. And this is what explains the majority of the drop that we saw last year, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

And by the way, as explained by Fleury, right, the brands that depend the most on this occasion are core brands, and that's the reason why you saw the core brands somehow following what happened with the industry, okay? So what is good about that is the fact that even with such a, you know, challenging circumstance, context, right, we measure the attitudinal side of our consumers regarding the category constantly, right? And we see, right, not only, you know, protection of the relationship between consumers and the category, but with those that are more, that are closer to the category, we saw a strength, which doesn't mean that those that are more, more, you know, infrequent consumers, sporadic consumers, right, do not fluctuate. And for those consumers, we are working with a very versatile category to attend more needs and trends.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

That's the reason why you see us developing zero, right, alcohol beer, right? We are developing functional beers like gluten-free, lower calories, and we are also attending those consumers with more sweet flavor beers, like, you know, a Flying Fish that we introduced last year. So regarding the point about the GLP-1, we haven't observed any meaningful impact on our business. But, but like any other emerging trend, it requires time, more evidence, and as a consequence, I just wanna say that we're gonna keep monitoring and acting accordingly.

Renata Cabral
Renata Cabral
Analyst at Citigroup

Thank you so much, Lisboa.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

You're welcome.

Operator

Our next question comes from Isabella Simonato from Bank of America. Please, Mrs. Simonato, microphone's open.

Isabella Simonato
Isabella Simonato
Managing Director at Bank of America

Thank you. Hi, Lisboa. Hi, Fleury. I mean, my question is about 2026 Beer Brazil. I mean, as you mentioned, right, last year was quite challenging in terms of weather and occasions, and you highlighted, right, several tailwinds this year, especially regarding that, right? The World Cup and et cetera, more holidays, right, as you mentioned in the past. But at the same time, you're coming--your guidance, right, probably shows that costs will grow above general inflation, right? And you're coming off from a base of SG&A that seems tough in the sense that that was a very good performance, right, in the last year.

Isabella Simonato
Isabella Simonato
Managing Director at Bank of America

So when you balance things, right, between maybe a more favorable backdrop and what you're facing internally, I wanted to hear your thoughts on your pricing strategy for 2026, right? And also, if you could give us a little bit of a color on how should we think about mix, especially during the World Cup. And among those variables, right, across those variables, what do you think should be more relevant when we're thinking about volume growth for the year? Thank you.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Isabella, it's a long question, right? So let me, let me take the point about pricing, right, which is very sensitive, so I'm gonna try to answer without going to any, you know, a territory that we don't want, right? So our pricing has a mission composed by twofold, right? One side of the pricing story is keep our industry accessible, and the reason why for that is what I mentioned before, right? A good--The majority of the population in Brazil still, right, depend a lot on accessibility to be close to the category, so we must keep an eye on it, right? That's the reason why core has a role to play. That's the reason why packaging assortment has a role to play, right? Because we wanna give them accessible alternatives, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

If we rely only on premium, we're gonna make their lives even harder, right? On the other side of the story, pricing has the role, you know, to protect our profitability moving forward, right? As you know, we have an ambition to continue, you know, expanding margins in the future. Ambition, right? The same way we anticipated to you in the beginning of last year. We keep this ambition alive, and Fleury mentioned that in the beginning of the session, right? So we're gonna... we need to be always balancing the two sides of the story, so it's not a or, but it's a end game, right? The beauty about our situation today is when you, you look to our flywheel, right, first and foremost, our portfolio is more complete today, right?

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

And it is complete regionally speaking, so it give us alternatives, right, to move forward with our revenue management strategy for the year, right? On the second side of the story, the second pillar of our strategy, you find the digital ecosystem. And, you know, I already mentioned to you all, right, this is enabling us to, you know, strengthen our core business while creating new growth engines. On the first side of the story, go deeper on the core business. We are using technology to go more granular, right? To, you know, execute our revenue management, revenue management strategy in a different way than we used to do before, right? We are more effective today than before in terms of dollar invested, right, in promotions and so on and so forth.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Our, you know, algorithms help us to recommend the right portfolio of brands for each type of point of sale, and so on and so forth. By doing so, we not only improve, right, our capacity to execute the pricing per se, but we also bring together a very interesting mix impact for the game. And the two together should be enough, right, to offset what kind of, you know, impact we see on the COGS side, as we did last year. That's pretty much the, you know, the balance we have to keep in place every single day. And I must confess, and the more we do it, the better we get, right? So again, similar to what I said before, I feel like last year was a very good acid test, stress test for us to be ready for the year to come.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

It's Guilherme Fleury here. Just to add one thing here, Isabella. When you look into our costs, another way of thinking about that, costs and expenses, you look that in a holistically way. You always do the resource allocation over and over, as Boa was mentioning, measuring returns from market promotions, from everything that we do. It's also fair to say that, as Lisboa mentioned, over time, we want to increase. We have the ambition of increasing our margin. But, most likely not gonna be able to do that every quarter, because when you look into pillars 1, 2, and 3, those will be maximized over time, but that's our long-term ambition, looking to our costs, taking out of the equation what didn't make sense, and refuel and reinvesting behind our brands.

Guilherme Fleury
Guilherme Fleury
CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Ambev

That's what Lisboa mentioned as a flywheel, so that's what we want to continue to gain momentum over and over.

Isabella Simonato
Isabella Simonato
Managing Director at Bank of America

Thank you very much.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Thank you.

Operator

This thus concludes the Q&A section. I'll now hand the floor back to Lisboa for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Carlos Lisboa
Carlos Lisboa
CEO at Ambev

Thank you for joining our call today. I would like to close reinforcing some messages. Our mission is to always strive for our better version, and we will do that by leading and shaping a love category with clear headroom for growth. Advancing simultaneously on the three pillars of our strategy is what set us apart. 2025 stress-tested our strategy, and we close the year stronger and better prepared for what comes next. Thank you, and hope to see you soon. Enjoy Carnival.

Operator

This concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

Executives
    • Carlos Lisboa
      Carlos Lisboa
      CEO
    • Guilherme Fleury
      Guilherme Fleury
      CFO and Investor Relations Officer
Analysts
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