TheQuartering [7/7/2023]
Two months since Bud Light sparked calls for a boycott over its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the beer brand continues to suffer declining sales and there are no signs of a rebound.
The latest tracking figures by Nielsen IQ, provided to Newsweek by Bump Williams Consulting, show that in the week ending June 3, Bud Light suffered its third-worst weekly sales revenue decline since the start of April, compared to its dollar income the same time last year.
That week, the beer brand’s revenue was down 24.4 percent compared to the same week a year ago, while volume—the number of units of beer sold—was 28.2 percent lower.
The only times in the past few months when its sales revenue was worse compared to the year prior were the week ending May 13, when it was 24.6 percent lower than the same time in 2022, and May 20, when it dropped to 25.7 percent below the same time last year.
The week ending May 20 also saw the greatest contraction in sales volumes—29.5 percent down year-on-year—though weekly volumes have been at least 27 percent lower than in the year-earlier periods since the week ending April 29.
The latest industry figures show the backlash led to a steep decline in early April, before stabilizing at consistently about one-fifth lower in terms of sales revenue than last year—suggesting Bud Light sales in the U.S. beer market may have settled at a new, lower market share.
In the four weeks to May 20, its share of the domestic premium beer market in terms of sales volume was 29.9 percent, but in the four weeks to June 3 this had slipped slightly to 29.2 percent. Year-to-date, its overall share was 34.8 percent.
“The declines accelerated coming out of the April 1 week, and have settled in the mid-high -20 percent range ever since,” Dave Williams, vice president for analytics and insights at Bump Williams Consulting, previously told Newsweek. He added they were “fluctuating slightly, but we have yet to observe any notable signs of improvement back to the previous norms.”
