What happened?
We have received the latest US Nielsen retail off-trade data for the US Spirits industry, covering the four weeks to 14th June 2025 (''May/June''). Note, within this report we refer primarily to ''core spirits'' trends which excludes the growth of spirits-based cocktails/RTDs. Our ''core spirits'' estimates by distiller are formed by aggregating all major brands separately disclosed by Nielsen. We also present the growth trends for ''total spirits'' (incl. spirits-based RTDs) in the second table for which we would caution volume and price / mix trends are distorted by the impact of cocktail/RTDs.
BNPP Exane View:
US Spirits industry: Off trade
We estimate US core spirits retail sales in the US off-trade declined by -2.9% in the latest 4-week period to 14th June, very modestly ahead of the -3.3% in the prior 4 weeks to leave QTD at -3.1% (cf. Q1 -2.4%, Q4 -1.5%). We estimate core spirits volumes declined by -3.7% to leave QTD at -3.8% (cf. Q1 -3.3%, Q4 -3.1%) while price/mix growth at +0.8% was in-line with recent trend (QTD +0.8%; Q1 +0.9%, Q4 +1.6%).
Including Cocktails/Spirits-based RTDs, US industry off-trade sales declined by -0.1% in the latest 4 weeks to leave QTD at -0.2% (cf. Q1 flat, Q4 +0.8%), with volumes +2.4% to leave QTD at +2.6% (cf. Q1 +2.1%; Q4 +2.6%). From a sub-category perspective, we note that Cocktails (+14.3%) and Cordials (+3.1%) continued to be the only categories with value growth in positive territory in May / June (Tequila retail sales declined -1.2%).
Company Summary
Diageo core spirits retail sales declined by -2.5% in the latest period, a small improvement from May (-2.8%) to leave QTD at -3.4% (cf. Q1 -2.3%, Q4 +2.0%). Crown Royal brand sales returned to growth over the last 4-weeks (+1.3%) driven by Blackberry (+143%) to leave QTD at -3.0% (cf. Q1 -4.2%, Q4 +12.9%). Don Julio off-trade sales growth remains strong at +13.9% but decelerated further (on increasingly challenging comps) to leave QTD at +18.6% (Q1...
