I would like to welcome you all to this presentation of Royal Unibrew's 2022 half year result. My name is Lars Jensen, and I'm the CEO of Royal Unibrew. With me this morning as usual, I have CFO Lars Vestergaard, and we will present the results before taking your questions. Now if you please turn to slide number 3. First, I would like to start by thanking everybody in Royal Unibrew. I know a lot of you are listening in, and you have done a fantastic job, and we can be very proud of what we have achieved in 2022 so far. We experienced a very strong top-line momentum in the second quarter as COVID-19 finally released its grip on the geographies we are present in. The on-trade channel was fully open, and the event business returned with music festivals, big concerts, and sporting events.
This led to a solid 5% organic volume growth in Q2, getting into 2% for the first half of the year. This is very satisfactory development as we were up against relatively tough comparables from last year, especially Western Europe, but also international showed strong volume growth. We implemented price increases during Q1 to neutralize the input price inflation that we faced from 2021. This together with a better mix resulted in a solid organic net revenue growth of 15% both for the quarter and for the first half of the year. The strong price mix effect driven by Northern Europe and international. The period from where we were hit by input price increases until we can offset this by increasing our sales prices to customers creates a pressure on earnings.
As the invasion of Ukraine started a second wave of input price inflation, which has resulted in a 13% organic EBIT decline in both Q2 and the first half of 2022. We had a positive EBIT contribution from M&A activity of almost DKK 60 million in the second quarter, meaning that reported EBIT only increased by 2% in the quarter. The free cash flow in Q2 amounted to DKK 669 million compared to DKK 785 million last year and was impacted by a negative development in working capital and high CapEx. As we see it, we delivered strong growth in the first half of the year. We are gaining market share in most markets, and the integration of Crazy Tiger, Solera, and Hansa Borg are progressing as planned.
Against that, we have been hit by significant increase in input prices, which we have not been able to pass on to our prices yet. The summer in Northern Europe have been more wet, less sunny than normal, and we have seen some beginning signs of consumers starting to use the discount retail outlets more frequently than traditional supermarkets which carry a broader assortment. We'll continue to implement price increases where possible throughout the second half of 2022 and thereby regaining our profitability and therefore also maintain our full-year outlook for the revenue of DKK 10.7 billion-DKK 11.7 billion, equivalent to an EBIT of DKK 1.7 billion-DKK 1.85 billion. Please turn to slide 4. The first half of 2022 turned out to be very eventful period.
As I already mentioned, the industry was impacted by the reopening, and for us, the on-trade grew by double-digit percentages across all markets. In Q2, this was supported by the event business with music festival, concerts, big sports events that came back after the COVID restrictions was lifted. Clearly, when all people are busy exploring and exploiting the reopened on-trade, volume in will move away from off-trade to the on-trade. We therefore did see a decline in off-trade volumes in all markets, despite in Italy, where our strong organization managed to grow off-trade volume by double-digit percentages. Russia's invasion of Ukraine resulted in significantly higher input prices, which created a new mismatch between our cost base and our pricing in the market. We have initiated measures to implement further price increases during Q3 in all markets, possible to reduce the cost backlog.
In the second quarter, we inaugurated and commissioned a new line of our factory here in Faxe in Denmark. The can capacity in Faxe was expanded by approximately 25% with this new line, but it also added new sustainable packaging solution opportunities to our capabilities. This will help us to reduce the use of plastic and thereby our CO2 footprint. We have also built a new PET line in Finland with the aim to support our expected sales growth in the region, as well as adding ability to produce larger quantities of smaller packaging formats, which is growing nicely. We are on track with our regarding implementation of our sustainability strategy. Last year, we committed to the Science Based Targets initiative, and we are currently in the process of establishing the full Scope 3 footprint.
We believe that the two targets we have set on decarbonization for 2025 and 2030 are aligned with the requirements as agreed in the 2015 Paris Accord. Through collaboration with our suppliers, we are working hard, and we are on track to reach the goal of reducing our supply chain emission, Scope 1, 2, and 3, by 50% by 2030. If we can turn to slide number 5, please. Before I turn over to Lars for a detailed review of our financial result, I'll spend a little bit of time giving more color on the development in the three business segments. In Northern Europe, which covers our multi-beverage businesses in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Baltic countries, Denmark and Germany, we grew volume by 5% and net revenue by 41%, while EBIT declined by 1%.
The strong top-line momentum is a combination of the reopening of the on-trade and price increases implemented during Q1 2022. As well as the M&A effect. The reported EBIT margin in H1 2022 decreased by 5.6% to 13.3%, and the weaker profitability was due to the higher input costs related to the acquisitions, as well as the result of the investments we have done to strengthen the organization. The organic EBIT margin declined by 3.5% To 15.3% in the first half year. The development in Denmark and Germany was positively impacted by the reopening, whereas off-trade contributed negatively as consumption shifted away from at-home consumption and sales shifted back to the border between Denmark and Germany. In Denmark, we were once again voted as the best supplier at head office level in the Danish grocery retail.
This was the fourth year in a row, and therefore a very strong accomplishment, and I would like to thank everybody in the Danish organization and congratulate them on this very strong performance. In Finland, the on-trade reopening also contributed positively, but a decline in off-trade resulted in an overall volume decline in the first half of the year. The decline in off-trade volume was primarily because we participated in an extraordinary beer campaign in the first quarter last year. Cider RTD continues to perform well, and volumes grew by double-digit in the first half of 2022, and our iconic RTD brand, Original Long Drink, is turning 70 years old this year, and the brand is stronger than ever in the market.
It is, among other things, celebrated by the release of new flavors, whereas the official birthday was celebrated in the weekend that just passed at the Flow Festival in Helsinki. The Baltic countries were missing previous sales to Russia, but adjusted for that, the underlying development was strong, and the focus on high-margin products resulted in double-digit % growth in both energy drinks and cider ready-to-drink in the first half. We grew more than the market in these categories, meaning that we were gaining market share in both these important categories. In Norway, the integration of Solera and Hansa is going according to plan. The organization for the combined business has been set, and commercial plans for Norway is being built as we speak. Hansa Borg gained market share in beer during the first half of the year.
In Sweden, we continue to invest in strengthening and future-proofing the organization. In Western Europe, which consists of our multi-niche businesses in Italy, France, volumes increased by 49% in the first half. Revenue increased by 41%, and EBIT by 4% in the same period. Both on-trade and off-trade is up against first half of 2021, but the very high growth has led to higher costs. The reported EBIT margin therefore also declined six percentage points to 16.9% for the first half. The weaker profitability is due to higher input costs, including transportation costs, as well as investments to strengthen the organization in Italy. We continue our very strong performance in all categories and in all channels.
We more than doubled our energy drinks volume in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, and we are now number 3 in the market with a volume market share of 4%, which is a very strong achievement. We continue to be the market leader in the lemon segment in the Italian soft drink market, and we grew both our Lemonsoda range and our super premium beer range, Ceres, by double-digit percentages in the first half of 2022. Our energy drinks business in France, Crazy Tiger, continues to grow, whereas the lemonade business in Lorina declined as consumption moved from retail to on-trade, where Lorina has limited presence and is of course on the back of COVID-19.
In international, which comprises the export and license businesses in markets outside of the two other segments, the volume increased by 1% and net revenue increased by 15%, whereas EBIT declined by 29% compared to first half last year and was heavily impacted by higher logistics costs. The business segment has continued to be down-prioritized due to capacity constraints in our supply chain. Sales out in the markets continue to be higher than sales in, meaning that inventories have been lowered during the first half of 2022. The acceleration in growth rates compared to the previous quarters underlined the potential we see in the international markets. The EBIT margin declined by 7.6% to 12% and is driven by higher raw material and logistics costs.
The international segment is clearly the segment that is the hardest hit by the higher freight costs and supply chain challenges. Our African beer business and malt business continued to grow in the first half of 2022, and at the same time as our North American business also grew across all key categories. With that, I will turn over to you, Lars.
Thank you, Lars, and good morning to everyone. If we could please turn to slide number 6, please. As Lars already told, we had a very strong top-line momentum in the first half of 2022. Our volumes increased by 2% in the second quarter and by 5% in the first half. The acceleration is driven by the reopening of on-trade and strong momentum in Western Europe and international. Our price increase and positive product and channel mix resulted in organic net revenue growth of 15% in both second quarter and first half of 2022. M&A contributed by 25% to the reported growth in Q2 and by 23% in the first half. The gross profit was 4% below first half of 2021 and at 45%, whereas the gross profit per liter was 5.2% higher in 2022.
Gross profit per liter is positively impacted by channel mix, as gross profit is higher in on-trade than off-trade. The inflationary pressure on our cost base and the investments in our organization resulted in an EBIT of DKK 720 million, which is 4% below the level of first half of 2021, although still above first half of 2019. The EBIT margin declined by 5.8% to 13.4%, driven by input price increases, dilution from acquisitions, and investments in the organization. I will give more details on the margin contraction on the next slide, as well as on the free cash flow slide that declined, where we had a decline of DKK 370 million. Please turn to slide number seven.
On the left, we have shown how the net revenue growth of 38% from DKK 3.905 billion last year to DKK 5.373 billion this year is split between M&A contribution and organic growth. The organic growth of 15% added more than DKK 550 million to our business and was driven by strong price mix in all markets and categories. In addition, the acquisition of especially Solera, but also Hansa Borg, which contributed by a little more than one month, contributed to around DKK 900 million to net revenue, corresponding to 23%. On the right, you can see the main drivers of the EBIT margin development in the first half of the year.
M&A diluted the margin by 1.2% , despite contributing by almost DKK 70 million to the result in the first half. This positive contribution to the absolute EBIT development comes primarily from Solera, Crazy Tiger, and Hansa Borg. It is clear from the graph that by far the biggest impact is from what we call time lag. The unexpected cost increase driven by the war in Ukraine came after the conclusion of the price increases in the beginning of the year. We are not able to pass our cost increase to our customers immediately. We are implementing price increases during Q3. This time lag between cost inflation and price increases explains roughly 4.5% of the margin contraction and corresponds to around DKK 200 million of costs that have not yet been mitigated by sales price increases.
We expect to regain parts of this with price increases that we plan to implement during Q3. In total, our business have been exposed to around DKK 0.8 billion cost inflation on an annual basis, so it is a significant impact that we are carrying in our business. Please turn to slide number 8. On this slide, you can see the development in the free cash flow in the first half of the year compared to the first half of 2022. Net profit for the first half amounted to DKK 926 million, which is DKK 332 million higher than in the first half of 2021, and is driven by a non-cash tax-free revaluation of our 25% shareholding in Hansa Borg that we had prior to taking full ownership of the company.
This effect amounts to DKK 360 million. The non-cash adjustment to our free cash flow there is also amounting to DKK 17 million this year, which is DKK 318 million less than last year, and again, primarily explained by the revaluation of the 25% shareholding in Hansa Borg. The free cash flow from operating activities amounted to DKK 562 million, which is a decline of DKK 323 million compared to last year, and primarily explained by a negative contribution from working capital of DKK 247 million, or DKK 328 million lower than last year. Tax and financial payments contributed to a negative of DKK 134 million, which is DKK 19 million more than last year.
The CapEx increased from DKK 202 million last year to DKK 252 million this year. [This] resulted in a free cash flow of DKK 310 million, which is DKK 373 million lower than last year's DKK 683 million. Please turn to slide number nine. Now turning to the outlook for 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine towards the end of February ignited another wave of input price increases impacting our cost base by additional DKK 300 million during February-March time. This was on top of the approximately DKK 450 million impact that we experienced during 2021.
We did take account of most of this in our initial guidance, given in the beginning of March, but especially energy prices have contributed to increases during Q2 and into Q3, having an additional negative impact on our cost base of around DKK 100 million. The majority of our energy cost is unhedged, and some of our suppliers are also exposed to increased energy prices with differences in how much they're hedged. This is putting a substantial pressure on our cost base as well as our suppliers. In total, our input costs have now increased by more than DKK 0.8 billion compared to the beginning of 2021, of which approximately DKK 200 million was not covered by price increases by the end of the second quarter.
On top of this, the summer weather in the Nordics has been below average, and we are not helped by staycation this summer, which combined had an estimated negative impact on EBIT of around DKK 50 million. At the same time, we have seen signs of consumers starting to address the totality of consumer price inflation by using discount retail outlets more than previously on behalf of the supermarkets. Also, taking the high level of macroeconomic uncertainty into consideration, we are taking actions to further reduce our cost base. We do maintain our full year outlook for net revenue of DKK 10.7 billion-DKK 11.7 billion in revenue and DKK 1.7 billion-DKK 1.85 billion in EBIT.
This is assuming that we do not see COVID-19 lockdowns in the remainder of 2022. We have not included any contribution from the agreed but not closed acquisitions of Aqua d'Or or Amsterdam Brewery. The process with the Danish Competition Authorities is ongoing, and we now expect the deal to close in Q3 this year compared to previous expectation of a decision in Q3. Amsterdam Brewery is expected to close in Q3 this year. Finally, we still expect CapEx to be around 5% of net revenue in 2022, and the tax rate to be around 21% of profit before tax, excluding results from investments in associates. With that, I would like to turn the word back to you, Lars.
Thank you, Lars. Before we go to Q&A, I would like to take you through our agenda for the coming months. We do believe that our business model is strong and that our growth algorithm is intact, but temporarily also interrupted because of the abnormal circumstances we see at the moment, with the cost increases from raw and pack in particular. We have a strong momentum in the business. We are gaining market share in most categories and markets. Our premium product portfolio is growing, especially in our focus categories. On top of that, the integration of the companies that we have acquired over the past 18 months are progressing as planned. We have, as well as the rest of the industry, been hit by unprecedented input price inflation.
We are approximately DKK 200 million behind the input price inflation experienced in Q1 2022, and there are more to come in the second half of the year until we can pass on the cost increases to consumers. One of our main priorities right now is therefore to secure an average price increase for our own products to reach an unchanged gross profit per hl through direct price increases, value management, which is a lot of price pack work. It's about price elasticities, and in particular in circumstances where consumers are changing some of their behaviors, and a lot of work as well on the assortment. We will be on our toes in monitoring the market development following the price increases already done, as well as the ones to come, and on the back of that, manage our cost accordingly.
We clearly need to continue relentlessly on the integrations and execution of our business plans for the businesses that we have acquired to secure future growth for the entities and to achieve the synergies that are laid out in the acquisition plans. We're still working with some capacity constraints in our production facilities, and even though some of our acquisitions eventually will help us to ease this, we need, in the short term to medium term, to manage our CapEx to ensure the necessary capacity across the group. Our ambitions on the ESG strategy is more in focus than ever. The energy crisis and other supply chain issues have increased the need to move away from fossil-based fuel, as well as improving the balance between production and consumption.
Lastly, we need to be very alert and manage our commercial spending to exploit the growth opportunity that will continue to pop up in the market, but also be ready to adapt to changes in consumer behaviors. With these words, I would like to send it back to the operator, and we are ready to take the questions.
Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question is from Søren Samsøe with SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. It's Søren from SEB. A couple of questions from me. If you could maybe you have very strong growth, obviously in Q2. Maybe you could give a bit more color or split on what is coming from the on-trade recovery and what is more sort of underlying structural growth. Maybe you could give a little bit more what is the growth in the individual segments, for example, energy drinks, RTD and so on. So we sort of can see what points more into 2023 and what is more like a, say, one-off growth from the on-trade recovery. That would be really helpful. Thank you.
If I go a little bit maybe, you know, market by market or area by area in giving a little bit of a sentiment, I think overall, I think beer is still the category where we are not getting back to 2019 levels yet, whereas categories like no low sugar, no low alcohol within beer, within ciders, et cetera, energy drinks, and enhanced waters is still gaining momentum as categories. In these categories, we are performing generally better than the market across. There's differences between north and south, I would say.
The northern countries, Denmark, the multi-beverage markets, I think the dynamics are a little bit less than what we see in Southern Europe. The growth rates in energy drinks is higher in Southern Europe than it is in Northern Europe, as an example. But there's not, I would say, large changes to the trends. There might be some recalibration in terms of getting back to a more normal situation on the back of COVID, but it's the same trends that we experience now as we experienced before.
Okay. Second question is on the margin. In your slides you point out 450 basis points margin impact from the time lag effect. Does that correspond to the additional DKK 200 million in cost you're talking about? Does that number also include a negative effect in the second half? What would that number be just isolated for the second half? Thank you.
If I just start. What happens here is that if you just take it as, you know, the sequence in terms of how things are happening here. The price increases that we already signaled relatively early in 2021, those have been implemented as price increases to cover up during the first quarter. There's differences between the different markets in terms of when it's possible to change the different pricing. That means that there is a time lag, which we knew in advance because that's the same every year. That's the first one. The price increases that came on the back of the war or the war was initiated.
That increase we started to discuss with the trade after a couple of months, and that means that the price increases that we are passing on as we speak here during the third quarter, those relates to what we knew a couple of months after the war started. That's the knowledge back from kind of like April-ish. That is what you see now. That creates another time lag. We catch up on the first one, right? Because we get the price increases, the full effect from the price increases in that we did, but then we are losing out on the second part, and that will continue until that we have been able to regain it all and the inflation will start to fade out. That is kind of like the sequence in terms of how it happens.
When prices are going up very fast, as an industry, we will always be behind the curve. That is what we are talking about in terms of the numbers. I don't know if you wanna comment on the specifics of those, Lars.
The DKK 200 million we mentioned in the report, that explains the 4.5% is in the first half. As we also mentioned, there is more costs that have occurred in June, July, of roughly DKK 100 million, that is on top of that. We are trying to get the prices moved on to consumers. The 4.5% is primarily in the first half of the year, and that's the DKK 200 million that we mentioned.
Okay. Thank you. Just a final one. How should we then think about as it, at the current prices that you will still have a headwind in Q3, but then that is starting to sort of fade out and be maybe a flat-ish to slightly positive effect in Q4? Or how does it look?
If you look at the magnitude of what we are experiencing, last year we saw a dramatic increase, and that's more than DKK 400 million that we needed to pass on in the beginning of the year. We got another DKK 350 million in February and March related to the Ukraine thing. If we just look at it today, that's roughly DKK 100 million more that we need to offset. It's the size of what we are carrying is maybe reducing a little bit. We do expect some improvements in the second half because now we have passed on the vast majority of the cost inflation.
I would also say some of the prices are extremely volatile at this point in time. If you look at the gas prices, which was a big industry impact in our brewing industry, whereas oil prices are coming down. You do see a little bit of some mixed effects this year. I would say if you look at the improvements that we see in our margins, a lot of it is going to come in quarter four, where we have implemented all the price increases and where our comparison numbers from last year was heavily impacted by the COVID lockdowns. We will have a big positive impact versus last year in our Q4 numbers.
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. I will get back in the queue.
The next question is from André Thormann with Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. First, this is actually a bit on what you just elaborated on, Lars. Just to be sure, I mean, looking at your midpoint EBIT guidance, then you imply that you need to have quite significant growth in the second half. Can you maybe help us build what exactly will help you to generate such significant growth in the second half considering your decline in the first half? That's the first question. The second is, in terms of price increases, I wonder if you can elaborate whether it's equally easy to get price increases through in all markets, meaning do you have problems increasing prices in some markets?
I remember you have mentioned France. Whether you can give a status about price increase in Norway. That's my questions. Thanks.
If we take the big positive impacts in H2 versus the, sorry, that is going to help us deliver more than we did last year in the second half. Clearly, as I mentioned before, not having a lockdown in on-trade in quarter four is gonna give a big lift in our business. Another one is that the price increases that we are expecting to impact our business here in the beginning of the third quarter, that will help us a lot where we have been carrying quite a lot of costs during the second quarter that have not been mitigated by cost inflation.
We are also going to look at our cost base, so probably less commercial spending than will also help us in our business. I do think that there's also one thing that the volatility in energy prices is very, very substantial at this point in time, and if you look at the gas prices since mid-June, it has been absolutely all over the place. At the same time, you see oil prices come down. For some of our cost categories that are very important for us, the volatility is very high. It could, of course, mean both a plus and a minus in the rest of the year compared to what we're looking into.
The big drivers are COVID, price increases, and less commercial spending.
On the question on the price increases, it's not easy to pass on price increases, and it has never been. I think as the consumer sentiment starts to change a bit, because the energy bill privately is getting up and you start to count units in a different way, and you look at how you're going to consume, it will be more difficult to get prices up, in our opinion, and to hit the right price points that are considered attractive for the consumers. That is also the reason why we have, from the beginning, indicated that we should follow the overall inflation in the market as a beverage industry, and we are not there.
We will do whatever we can to get there, but I think as time goes, it will be more and more difficult to get further price increases up. The window that we have or the price increases that we are doing right now are very important. The next step that will come as soon as possible will also important. I think beyond that, I would think it would probably be more challenging to get, I would say, positive out of it. That's also why we're talking a lot about cost. We're talking a lot about keeping you know, our facilities intact, efficient and with as low consumption as possible.
It's some of the same tools that we had to find from the toolbox as when the financial crisis was up. It's about the same. In terms of geographies, I think it's still the markets where competition is the toughest and the concentration on retailers are the least, I would say. Where the retailers are extremely strong, those are the markets where price increases are more difficult to get through and at the speed that is needed. Yes, France is one of these markets, as you mentioned it.
Norway is a market similar to Denmark and Norway, where you have your windows during the year, where you adjust assortments, campaigns, promotions, and also pricing. That follows, I would say, a normal pattern, as it does in the other major markets in our business.
Can I just come with one follow-up? It's just because Norway is undergoing a quite significant normalization. I mean, does this give any difficulty in terms of increasing prices?
Those are two, I would say, independent topics that you touch upon. The increase during COVID for the alcohol beverages in particular, in what is sold in Norway, that went up by about 25%. Now that because of traveling is almost fully up to speed, and that the border trade between Sweden and Norway is again up and running, that is just getting back to normal. When we acquired both businesses, that was adjusted in the normalized EBITDA. What we are looking at is an expected decline in sales and profitability, and we did not pay for it.
No, no. I was just wondering whether it gave any difficulties when volumes are coming down so dramatically for example, Vinmonopolet to further increase prices.
It's not a surprise for them either, I would say. In our opinion, those two things are not connected.
Okay. Thanks.
The next question is from Richard Withagen with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, all, and thanks for the questions. I've got three questions, please. First of all, Lars, you talked about some declines in the rate that you're seeing. What are the kind of declines and how maybe you can share how the off-trade compares to 2019 levels? Second question is on, maybe you can give a bit of an update on the Solera Hansa Borg integration. I would be especially interested to hear if you're planning any possible restructuring initiatives at Hansa Borg over the next few quarters. The last question is on your price position. How does your price position
Look, now after Q3 price increases have been implemented. I think in the last few quarters you've been a bit concerned about your price position versus the competition. How does that look now after the Q3 price increases?
If we start with the off-trade, I think what we are seeing in our business is that we continue to gain market shares, and the market shares we have gained in off-trade during COVID, we're holding onto most of them. Our portfolio is in good health. In total, we are higher than 2019. I would say, I think what we are seeing is a normalization of trade between on and off. Still we are at a substantial level, a higher level than we are in 2019 in terms of revenue and volumes in off-trade.
The market itself is also bigger than it was in 2019. We are not back to the same level. It's in between 2019 and the top. If you look at the different markets, the decline is between 3% and 7%-8%, if you take our 5 biggest markets and look at the last three or four months, that is where we have seen the full opening of on-trade. Those are the counts. Following up on that, on the price position, maybe first before we go to the integration question.
I think if we look at the pricing that we see on shelf right now, it is a little bit too early to evaluate the price increases that is passing through in Q3, because most of them have been done on the first of August, a few on the first of September. I think the picture is still that we have from a consumer pricing point of view, not knowing what happens to trade margins and so on and so forth, the consumer price in the outlets is higher relative to competition as we speak.
The question is when we get the Nielsen numbers or IRI numbers and so on, for the next couple of months, if some of that will change. I would say that compared, if I look at it overall, our top four markets overall, we have done. If the trade has not changed their margins, it indicates that we have taken average higher price increases than competition. That is what it indicates. If it's a fact, we don't know. Moving to the Solera and Hansa.
Yeah. Maybe we start with the Solera and Hansa integration. As we said when we did the Solera and Hansa acquisition, we bought the two businesses. They are complementing each other in a very strong way. Solera is very, very strong in wine and also in RTD, whereas Hansa is very strong in beer and cider. We have very strong positions in different segments. What we also know is that they have parallel logistics operations. Over the coming years, we need to look into what is the most efficient logistics set up in Norway. Both systems are working well today, so it's about improving something that is already strong.
The next steps in our Solera and Hansa business is that we have merged the management teams. We're trying to make certain that we offer a strong portfolio to our customers. Then implementing the growth framework that we have in Royal Unibrew, where we focus on all the categories that we know are growing structurally in the market. To be very specific on your question, have we planned any restructurings? No, because they are good businesses, and for us, this is all about creating a strong player in the Norwegian market for the long run. This is not a cost case.
It's a case where we need to win commercially by having a very strong offering to our customers and using the growth framework that works in particular in Denmark and Finland and implementing that in Norway. IT integration between the two businesses is expected to happen during next year. This year it's all about implementing growth initiatives and getting the organization up and running.
Great. Yeah, thanks.
The next question is from Thomas Lind Petersen with Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. I have a few questions. One question is regarding the energy prices last that you also touched a bit briefly upon. You write in your statement that at current levels, then the energy prices will lead to further sales price increases in Q4. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on these further sales price increases in Q4? It's not something I feel that you have guided for previously. Another question is on the guidance and a COVID lockdown. How much is that gonna impact your ability to reach the guidance? Finally, if you can elaborate a bit on the reason for not initiating a new share buyback program. Gearing would still have been below your target of 2.5.
If you could just put a few words on that. Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take the first one, which was like, kind of like two different things that you talk about in the price. You know, we are not guiding on price increases. You know, we look at every day, every month, every week, what the prices in the market are, you know, how we are pricing ourselves correctly and doing price elasticity analysis, and so on and so forth. I think what we see here is that if the inflation continues, and that is where we have, I would say in particular, seen negative changes on the energy side, then there will be.
There's the direct impact for us immediately, but there's also a spillover effect to our suppliers that will eventually hit us at one moment of time if it keeps staying at the same level. That is why it is very realistic that we will need another round of price increases towards Q4, beginning of next year. That is what we are indicating here.
In terms of the guidance, in our estimation of how the rest of the year is going, we've looked at how much on-trade business did we lose in the fourth quarter, in November and December, and that's what we've put into our models of COVID lockdowns. Of course, if you look at what really happened last year in December, lots of Christmas parties were canceled. Of course there was big impact both on and off-trade. It's not an exact number, but it is a very substantial number that we have put into our model, and we're not giving you the exact details, but almost all on-trade were out of our books in December last year.
It's a fairly substantial step up from COVID alone. In terms of share buyback, we've done a number of acquisitions. We have 2 that are not closed yet. For us, we think it's prudent to not do more share buybacks at this point in time because as I think we have been steering our business to over the last couple of years, we target a net debt to EBITDA of 1.5 ±. When we are getting to the top of the range, we have unclosed acquisitions. We do not see a need to do further share buybacks. That's why we are not planning any of those.
Great. Thank you.
The next question is a follow-up from Søren Samsøe with SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Can you comment a little bit about your market share development in Denmark, Finland, and also Italy?
Yes, I can do that. If we start north, we have gained a little bit of share in the Finnish market. When you take out the extraordinary beer can campaign that we did not have this year, which is what we always comment on, that would always be without that specific one. We are gaining a bit of share, and we are doing it in, I would say, in the categories where we have put priorities on low sugar, ready to drink, enhanced waters are categories where we are performing very well, and all categories that in principle carries an above average also profitability. That's good.
In Norway, the Hansa business is gaining share in the beer area, which they have actually done consistently for quite some time. They have been very strong on the innovation and in particular on the Mango IPA, which was launched a couple of years ago, is performing really well and it is again one of the propositions which is above average in terms of its profitability compared to a standard lager. We are keeping our shares in the wine business with all the dynamics that we see that we talked about early on with the sales moving back to the border trade in Sweden.
I would say a solid delivery commercially by the Norwegian teams both in Solera and Hansa Borg. In Denmark, we have been gaining a bit of share throughout. We have lost a little bit of share because we have not been able to deliver what was needed in the beer category. We have prioritized to deliver glass bottles to other markets because we have, you know, we could swap to cans instead. There's markets where we wouldn't have not had the ability to do that. That's of course on the export side.
Beer in the beer area, we are losing a little bit of share in retail, gaining a little bit in on-trade, so relatively flat overall. We are gaining share again in the categories that we prioritize. With above average profitabilities, also a solid performance. When I'm commenting on Denmark, it includes the border trade, because it caters to Danish consumers, so a nice performance. In France, we are still growing our business, but we have not been able to follow the market. One of the reasons, as we also commented on, is that the COVID opening or the reopening has caused a slight decline in retail and an increase in convenience and on-trade.
We do not have a presence in or a big presence in on-trade and in convenience. France is, I would say, the only country where we are not following the market overall because of our channel presence. If we look at Italy, that is the market where we have absolutely the most share and compared to the market. Our beer business is up. Our strong ale business is up 10% , kind of, and the market is slightly negative overall when it comes to beer. Our soft drink business is up by 40-50%, so extremely strong performance and we are taking, I would say, new.
Making new records almost every month in terms of our market shares in the market. That is one of the areas where we have done a lot of work to secure that we had enough supply, because of the speed of growth that we see. It's also one of the countries, I would say, or the country where we relatively have invested most money in expanding our organization capabilities and investing in marketing both for Lemonsoda and for Ceres. Underlying a strong performance. Then if you look at the international business, it's always difficult because of the niche market nature of the business that we have.
If you look at our sales, our sales in monitoring, the sales out monitoring that we have from our wholesalers, the net impression is that we are gaining share in all of our top, say, eight markets. That is what really matters in international. Overall, a solid, I would say market development, for us, overall.
Thanks. That was helpful. Just to follow up. In the Nordics, if you just concentrate on the Nordics, one of your big competitors reported about increasing volumes. You report about decreasing volumes, but still gaining market shares. Is that because maybe we talk about different segments, so you are maybe more seeing these market share gains in, you can say, other categories than beer and competitors are more talking about beer or how should we interpret this?
I think there's probably a little bit of market overlap, but there's also some markets that are not important for us. You know, Sweden is a relatively small market, and we do not have a lot of beer and soft drink. It's mostly a wine and spirits business as an example. That when we look at the markets, we always include the border trade. I don't think. I'm not sure if others do the same. We look at the consumers and not where we sell the products, that might make a difference. We are commenting on this extraordinary beer campaign, which we carve out. You know, we count.
If they count it in as a growth, and we don't count it in as a loss because this is something that comes and goes, then you maybe get some, you know, something that is not calibrated. I think one factor that we have seen at least until May, June, is that the low end of the market was still relatively soft. Private label discount and so on and so forth did not really gain in the market. That is more recent development. Within the last six weeks that we have seen that consumers shift more towards discount stores instead of traditional supermarkets, and thereby because of the nature discount products, low end, will gain a higher market share.
There's also the thing about comment, the comments that relates to the half year, and then the comments that relates to until now.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is a follow-up from André Thormann with Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks a lot. Just two follow-ups. The first one in terms of the first sign of down trading that you mentioned. I mean, can you maybe elaborate on which categories you see should be affected by this and why you don't, as I understand, expect an impact in second half? That's my first question. The second is in terms of the profitability in Crazy Tiger. When I look at the M&A contribution on EBIT and revenue, it looks like there is a quite high EBIT margin in Crazy Tiger. I calculate around 36% in the first half. I mean, can you elaborate a bit on why this is and whether I'm completely wrong here? Thanks.
On the question on down trading, it's still too early, and it's not something that we see a dramatic change, but we are highlighting that we do start to see that the discount channel is gaining more traction. We see that they gain share in the overall markets. Now we're not talking about, you know, beverage, we are talking about traffic, we are talking about their revenue, so to speak. We of course, in that respect, follow other food categories and so on and so forth. Some other categories, they see this before that we see it.
Remember that the brand loyalty is still very high in the categories where we work compared to categories that are more generic and where you do not really care about which kind of brand that you pick. There's something else that decides on what you buy. We are highlighting it and telling you that we are extremely alert about it so that we make sure that we do whatever we can to secure that the consumers stick with our brands. I'll say that's the situation.
On Crazy Tiger, it's correct that this is an above average business in terms of profitability, and that is what we have also said since we acquired the business, and that's without commenting on the specific number, but it is an above average EBIT margin that we generate.
Okay, thanks.
Final comment. Our French business have been merged so that you can say if you look at the two brands we have down there, Lorina and Crazy Tiger, both are premium brands. They have a joint supply chain, they have joint sales force, they have joint administration. I would say it's they complement each other very well and a lot of the costs are now shared between the two. There is of course synergies in that business by combining the two businesses.
Okay. Very helpful. Thanks.
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