Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our 2023 capital markets event, which we last did two years ago. I'm Debra Crew, Diageo's Chief Executive Officer. But first, here are our regulatory statements. So here's our plan for today. First, I will kick things off by discussing the current business environment for the industry and Diageo, highlighting positive trends while also recognizing the challenges that remain. I will also give a bit more color on the RNS shared last Friday. Then I will be recapping the foundational facts about this very attractive industry and Diageo's strong position within it. We are confident that our advantaged portfolio and footprint provides us an industry-leading, sustainable growth opportunity. We will then move on to the four key strategies which leverage our competitive advantages and will help us capture this growth.
Members of my executive team, management team will join me to bring this to life with examples from around the world. They will showcase how we will use cutting-edge consumer insight and move with speed and agility to continue to drive growth in our largest categories with our amazing brands, unleash the power of the portfolio to expand our footprint across the world, innovate to recruit into new occasions, winning with more consumers, and go from strong to stronger by raising the bar on execution. After lunch, we will then get in and have plenty of time for our guidance for the future, and we will close after you hear from our CFO, Lavanya, who will discuss how our growth algorithm is set up to continue delivering consistent results in a volatile world.
So let me start by talking about how the current environment is evolving internally and externally. As you are all aware, the external environment continues to be dynamic and volatile. Let me start with the positives. TBA continues to grow, and spirits continues to grow faster than TBA. While consumers show a combination of concern around cost of living and recession, they are also expressing signs of optimism, particularly with regards to our industry. On the other hand, geopolitical volatility is worsening. In addition to the war in Ukraine, which has disrupted the market for over a year now, we also have rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, impacting several markets. This is all leading to increased volatility in commodities. An example of this is the price of oil, which, having dropped to around $70 in the spring, is now back at nearly $80.
We are seeing retailers face a variety of pressure points, which I will cover in further detail in a moment. But first, let's dive a little deeper into consumer sentiment. We have a proprietary tracker where we monitor consumer sentiment in our industry on a quarterly basis, and it shows that consumer confidence is actively improving. Their desire to increase spending in alcohol and premium alcohol has gone up by over 12 percentage points from a low point reached in February 2022. We also see other positive signs for the future. 89% of consumers say socializing with friends is more important, 76% won't change what they spend on things that they love, and 88% want new experiences that make them laugh and smile. As for the upcoming holidays, our U.S. tracking is showing more...
is showing positive momentum in planned holiday spending relative to last year. This includes holiday spending overall, spending on name brand alcohol, trips to the on-premise, and holiday gatherings. For the on-premise, there is an overall 10% planned net improvement versus last year. These indicators give us the confidence that our brand investments can continue to yield positive results as we move through this volatile environment. While consumers are regaining confidence, our customers remain cautious. A persistently tight labor market means the off, and especially the on-trade, are still dealing with staff shortages that affect their ability to successfully activate our category. At the same time, high interest rates have added pressure to retailers, and we've seen groups cut back on investments and inventories.
This pressure is worldwide and particularly acute in regions such as Latin America, where the impact of US interest rates is most immediately felt. We are navigating these challenges and the consumer opportunity through a combination of innovation and agility. So now looking at our business in the short term, as we shared on Friday, we are seeing slower than expected growth, and we are no longer expecting fiscal 2024 first half to be stronger than fiscal 2023 second half. This is due to materially weaker performance in LAC, which makes up nearly 11% of Diageo's net sales value. Importantly, we have momentum continuing in four out of five regions, including seeing sequential improvement in our largest region of North America. I will come back and talk about LAC, but let's start with what we are seeing in the other 90% of our portfolio.
Starting in the East, we are seeing strong momentum in APAC, despite the slower recovery in China. While our Baijiu business is proving to be more resilient, we are seeing less momentum than we expected on the international spirits business, which is true also for the industry in general. In Europe, we still see momentum, although slower than in the second half of fiscal 2023. With geographical tensions escalating, trading has unfortunately stopped in key geographies in the Middle East, where we hold leading positions in spirits. In Africa, we do expect to see improvement in the rate of net sales growth in the first half of fiscal 2024, compared to the second half of fiscal 2023. Finally, in North America, we also expect sequential improvement in organic net sales growth in the first half of fiscal 2024, compared to the second half of fiscal 2023.
Diving a little deeper into the US. The category which grew between 4%-6% historically, peaked at double-digit growth in the COVID super cycle and dropped back for a time in between as we lapped reopenings and a return to pre-COVID activities. Now, the spirits industry growth is nearly mid-single digit. While we're not yet back to winning share in TBA, trends have stabilized, and we are taking bold steps to change the trajectory, and you're going to hear more about that from Sally and Claudia later today. Given the interest in this topic, I will once again address wholesaler inventory levels in the US. In summary, at the end of fiscal 2023, I was comfortable with the US distributor inventory levels, and if you recollect, elevated demand during the pandemic drove inventory to severely low levels.
This was particularly true on our most popular brands, such as Crown Royal and Bulleit. We leveraged our supply chain capabilities through fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022 to get product to distributors and get back on retailer shelves as quickly as possible. At the same time, we saw distributors increase inventories of our imported products, in response to the shipping and logistical challenges in fiscal 2022. In fiscal 2023, distributor inventory levels were in line with pre-COVID historical levels. As we've moved into fiscal 2024, nothing has changed. We remain a sell-out culture, focused on running the business the right way. Now let's discuss the current situation in LAC. The business grew 20% in the first half of last year versus a 15% four-year CAGR. To begin with, we are lapping a high comp. But the following three things have also happened.
First, if you recall, during our results at the end of the last fiscal, we said that we ended the year with higher inventory levels in Latin America and specifically in Brazil. We also talked about the weaker consumer environment during the World Cup and after, that led to that buildup. Going into this fiscal, the team expected to have worked through this by the end of the first quarter. Unfortunately, macroeconomic pressures have persisted, resulting in lower consumption than expected and consumer downtrading. For perspective, currently in tracked channels, spirits is down around 5% fiscal year to date in Latin America. We are gaining share in most markets, the main exception being Mexico. But regardless, this has slowed down the region's ability to work through channel inventory to manage to appropriate levels for the current environment in the marketplace.
Finally, unlike in developed markets, so like NAM and Europe, there is more limited point-of-sale data available. So while we have good visibility in inventory levels through our distributors, we have less visibility to inventory at the wholesalers and the retailers that they sell to. We've taken multiple rounds of pricing through fiscal 2022 and 2023, and in an environment of benign interest rates, these channels also may have purchased ahead of anticipated consumption. We do have a very experienced team in LAC, and they would normally be able to recognize this is happening and prevent it. But in an environment of extreme volatility through the COVID super cycle, in some places like Mexico, it was hard to see through what part of this was true consumption growth versus inventory increases in these opaque layers.
This also makes it difficult to predict precisely how quick we can move through this disruption. The upcoming holiday season is an important consumption time period, and the team has robust retail activity scheduled. So for perspective, historically, LAC has sold 63% of its annual Scotch sales in the first half, with the majority of depletions happening in the October, November, December time frame. We absolutely recognize the magnitude of this and are putting together the right action steps to manage it. I will come back to you during interim results in January 2024 to give you more information and status on those actions being taken. But this is an isolated issue. We have been and remain a sell-out culture.
Also remember, our LAC region in fiscal 2023 was around 60% on a constant basis, bigger than 4 years ago, and continues to be margin accretive to the group. Most importantly, the rest of our regions, which is 90% of our portfolio, are on their expected trajectories. So as we said on the call last week, we still expect to see growth and gradual improvement through fiscal 2024. While there are many green shoots, we also continue to experience headwinds, and the operating environment is likely to remain challenging. These are, however, short-term challenges, and we run this business for the long term. We will continue to invest in our brands as I am confident in the resilience and growth potential of our business, which will generate substantial and sustainable value for you, our shareholders.
So let's move on to why I have confidence in the long-term growth trajectory of the business. Let's start with the industry that we play in. TBA is a large category, and it's growing. Two, international spirits is growing faster than TBA, driven by favorable consumer trends. And three, Diageo is well positioned to win as we have great strength of brands, footprint, capabilities, and talent. I will cover each of these in more detail. TBA is almost $1 trillion, substantially bigger than non-alcoholic categories combined. TBA has grown for over a decade with strong value and reliable volume growth. These trends are expected to continue into the future. Strong consumer demographics underpin the growth in the total beverage alcohol market. We expect 600 million new Legal Purchasing Age, or LPA, consumers to enter the market by 2030.
India is expected to account for a quarter of LPA growth. The expanding middle class around the world should further contribute to industry growth. Moreover, alcoholic beverages are a small fraction of consumer spending, and there is clearly room for this to grow as disposable incomes grow. We believe the low level of spend on our category is also a key driver of the resilience of the category, which I will cover in a few minutes. Moving on to international spirits, this has been growing ahead of TBA, effectively recruiting and gaining share from beer and wine occasions. Over the past five years, international spirits have grown value at 6% CAGR, 1.4 x faster than TBA, contributing to roughly a third of TBA value growth.
Looking ahead, we expect international spirits to grow at 5% CAGR in retail sales value, or RSV, ahead of TBA at 4% per year. So why is spirits gaining share from beer and wine? Well, because spirits is a particularly attractive category that offers consumers a breadth to participation choices. From casual gatherings over food at home to high-tempo celebrations in convenient formats, spirits play in a wide range of occasions. As many of you saw on our culture wall last night, spirits play in many occasions in popular culture. This shows up through inclusion in popular movies and songs, to sports sponsorships and creative artist collaborations. Finally, it has a much wider price ladder than categories such as beer or wine. Spirits can appeal to several consumer segments and accommodate shifts in repertoires and different price tiers, depending on the occasion or motivation.
This supports consistent, resilient growth, regardless of the economic environment and consumer behavioral shifts. Spirits is also a dynamic category because it capitalizes on macro consumer trends. Take premiumization, for example. Consumers are clearly choosing to drink better, not more. In the last 10 years, premium and above spirits grew from 25% of category value to almost 35%. Super premium plus spirits have grown in value more than 2 times faster than other price tiers in the category. This price tier gained almost 700 basis points of share of international spirits RSV since 2012. A second key consumer trend is wellness, and as consumers prioritize this, they look for moderation, lower calorie alternatives, and more natural ingredients. This has fueled the growth of spirits in many areas.
The fact that tequila is keto diet-friendly is one example, and the growth of non-alc spirits would be another example. Non-alcohol spirit products, while still small, have grown 13 x since 2017. Convenience is already a significant part of many CPG categories, including TBA. Ready to drink has been the fastest growing segment of TBA for several years. Increasingly, consumers have begun trading up from beer and malt-based convenience into the higher priced spirit-based products, as well as directly recruiting new LPA plus drinkers. And importantly, international spirits is a very resilient category. This is proven out during the biggest economic downturn of the last 20 years, the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009. During this time, the category grew despite GDP contraction.
In the U.S., for example, spirits were 3.5 x less impacted than TBA, despite the increased unemployment across all income groups during this time period. As we look at Diageo, within the most vibrant parts of TBA, we have an advantaged portfolio that has the broadest range of regions, categories, and price tiers. Starting with the brand portfolio, we lead many of the largest international spirits categories and are number one in international spirits in RSV globally, 1.4 x bigger than the nearest spirits competitor. In fact, we are bigger than four of our top 10 competitors combined. Scotch and tequila have been the biggest drivers of our growth, but we have an extensive, high-quality portfolio that allows us to win wherever the consumer goes. Shui Jing Fang was a significant source of growth when baijiu went through its huge premiumization wave.
Tanqueray spearheaded the gin boom, and Guinness continues to thrive in the fastest growing segment of beer. With such a broad portfolio, I have the confidence that we can pivot quickly to changing consumer trends wherever they occur. That being said, while we are custodians of incredible traditional brands, we are not standing still. We are also active portfolio managers. Since fiscal 2017, we made 16 acquisitions, all in the premium and above price tiers. Our Casamigos acquisition put us at the forefront of the tequila explosion in North America. Since then, we have acquired other amazing, fast-growing brands such as Aviation Gin, 21Seeds flavored tequila, Balcones, American Single Malt, the premium rum, Don Papa, and Mr Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur. Active portfolio management, along with innovation and brand investment, has enabled the continued premiumization of our business.
In developed markets, premium and above products gained 18 percentage points of share of net sales value since fiscal 2017. They now account for over 70% of our NSV. In emerging markets, premium and above gained 13 percentage points of share of our NSV. That said, our business is balanced across price tiers. Scotch and tequila skew premium, but 45% of our sales outside these categories are in the standard and value price tiers. Even within Scotch, our brands and variants cover a wider range of price points. This is important as it gives us optionality through volatility. If we take Johnnie Walker as an example in the global financial crisis, Johnnie Walker Red volume was 50% less affected than the total Johnnie Walker volume and allowed us to retain down-trading consumers within the franchise.
Our portfolio is well-balanced, not only across price tiers and categories, but also across geographies. This supports the delivery of long-term, consistent, reliable growth, regardless of the short-term economic volatility that we can experience. This is an advantage we must continuously nurture, including investments to improve our exposure to some of the world's largest and fastest-growing consumer markets. In China, we are proud of our participation in Baijiu through Shui Jing Fang, putting us in a unique position among global spirits players operating in the market. We are investing in expanding supply of Baijiu, and it was fabulous to see the construction in progress when I visited Chengdu a few months ago. I'm equally excited that our Chinese malt distillery will be operational by the end of the calendar year.
Located in Yunnan, it will be carbon neutral and positions us to win in an emerging category with incredible potential in China. In India, we reshaped our participation in mainstream whiskey by divesting and franchising out a significant portion, or a significant portion of the portfolio to focus on where the growth is at, in premium tier, in the premium tiers. Last year, India had the highest growth of super premium plus international spirits, had the highest growth of super premium plus international spirits, excluding global travel. Indian consumers' repertoires are growing with the desire to drink less, but better. We are investing in and growing our presence at the top end of the price ladder, both in whiskey and other categories, such as tequila. In the US, we continue to invest in brand building and have expanded our capacity for growth.
Since fiscal 2017, we've almost doubled our absolute A&P investment in the US, taking our reinvestment rate from 15% - 20%. This has supported the 9% CAGR we have delivered on this business over the past four years. We're also investing in capacity expansion to support future growth, including key brands such as Bulleit and Crown Royal. In summary, we have an advantaged portfolio, which we are continuing to strengthen, giving us confidence that we can grow our business ahead of the market. So let's now move to our strategy to continue to drive growth in this dynamic category. Let's start with where we want to go. In 2022, we reached 4.7% value share of TBA.
While we're proud of this milestone, we want to go further, adding almost 30 billion new serves globally to reach 6% share of TBA by 2030. This is a vision we've shared before, and despite the short-term volatility and formidable competition, we remain confident about. Our ambition and purpose have not changed either. At Diageo, we are about celebrating life every day, everywhere. We want to be one of the best performing, most trusted, and respected consumer products companies in the world. We've laid out the four key growth strategies, which I want us to focus on in order to deliver against this exciting ambition. I'll give you a brief overview of the main strategic areas, and then my colleagues will explore them further after the break, bringing them to life with a few examples and case studies from around the world.
The first is that we need to continue to drive growth in our biggest categories. Our biggest categories are large and growing. As I discussed a few minutes ago, we are the number one company globally by RSV in Scotch, tequila, Rum, Vodka, Canadian Whiskey, and Liqueurs. In Scotch globally, we sell a bottle of Johnnie Walker every seven seconds, and we've grown the business at an 8% CAGR over the last four years. And as I've reviewed with you, we believe there's still huge headroom for growth. Growing these categories give us- gives us scale and resilience, and this scale allows us to go after even more opportunities. The second strategy is to unleash the power of the portfolio and expand our global footprint.
We have sales in nearly 180 countries, and as I described earlier, an incredible portfolio, one which is unrivaled in both the heritage of our brands and the consumers that they reach. Yet, our big brands are not present in many important markets. We have an opportunity to expand our key brands so that more consumers around the world can enjoy them. We also have an opportunity to take what is working in a market and reapply it with speed into other markets. This includes some of our most exciting innovations. Third, we also want to use our superior innovation capabilities to tap into new consumer occasions and recruit into our categories and brands. This is a core strength of Diageo and has been a big driver for us in the past.
I'm excited about the pipeline and the scale of what I know is coming in emerging occasions for us, like non-alcohol. Lastly, we will continue to raise the bar on execution, winning with consumers and customers. We're known for our scale and the quality of our execution in many areas, yet I believe we can do more. I want excellence in every consumer touch point and also in our end-to-end operations. We've driven an annual average of $500 million of productivity in the past several years, which we've stepped up in fiscal 2023, which we reinvested into the business. I know we have the opportunity to step change this further. Lavanya will cover this in more detail later in the day. We will also highlight one of our strongest markets, North America, and how they continue to raise the bar on execution.
These growth drivers are all supported by critical enablers. It requires deep consumer understanding, engaged talent, and embedding our Spirit of Progress plan into everything we do. So let's start with our Society 2030 Spirit of Progress plan. We run our business with the long term in mind. It's our license to operate. It creates a diverse and productive culture for us to thrive. It is the right thing to do in our communities and for the planet, where we lay down maturing stock for more than a decade. The Spirit of Progress plan, which we laid out in 2020 when we completed the previous ten-year plan, is a key enabler for us to continue to deliver long-term sustainable growth. I passionately believe that building a resilient business means delivering on our ESG plan.
To be clear, Spirit of Progress isn't a nice-to-do. It truly makes Diageo a better business, and it's embedded in everything we do. But we also know it's about being smart and efficient as well, so we look for what we call the triple wins. So what do I mean by that? I mean, we will do the right thing that benefits our communities, benefits our customers and consumers, and will also benefit Diageo's bottom line. If you look across our three main areas of ESG, positive drinking, inclusion and diversity, and sustainability, you will see this triple win strategy in action. To bring this to life, I will play a quick video that demonstrates how Society 2030 Spirit of Progress plan impacts our business. A further enabler for us is our engaged workforce.
We have over 30,000 talented individuals working with a clear purpose and with speed and agility to deliver our performance. We have a highly competitive employer brand that helps us attract, grow, and retain the best talent in a fiercely competitive talent marketplace. In fiscal 2023, we attracted 4,977 new employees to work at Diageo, and we saw a year-on-year increase of 22% in applications to join the company. Additionally, 5,092 employees took on new career opportunities within Diageo in fiscal 2023. That's 14 people making career moves per day. We know from our annual survey that our employees take ownership and have immense pride for Diageo's brands and performance. The net promoter score for employees recommending Diageo's products was +80.
For context, an index score of +10 to +30 is considered great, and anything +30 is considered excellent. We have a strong and diverse bench of leadership talent. On diversity, at the end of fiscal 2023, 44% of our leadership cohort are female. That's an increase of 5 percentage points versus the year ending fiscal 2020, and 43% are ethnically diverse. In our board, 70% are women, and 40% are ethnically diverse. Finally, we are committed to developing the skills and capabilities of our people in line with our future growth opportunities. Employees undertook 526,500 hours of learning and 11,538 digital learning in fiscal 2023. But don't just take my word for it. Let's hear directly from some of our employees from around the world.
Diageo has a really fantastic culture, where we really focus on people and engagement of our people, as well as development of the talent that we have.
Working for a company that shares my values around equality, equity, and diversity is very important to me.
I would say Diageo has a very open and warm culture. Everybody in the organization is so approachable.
Diageo is a very progressive company. It supports women in terms of flexible timings, so you can support your family.
Diageo offers a lot of opportunities for growth and learnings.
I love the flexibility that we have to craft our own careers, or maybe not even craft them, just sort of follow it where the opportunities are.
... Having the opportunity to spend six months parental leave provided relationship building with my children and an opportunity to support my wife.
When you get to any place, and it says, "This guy works with Guinness," people start looking at you different. Just like football players, everybody wants the best player to play for their team, and Diageo, we have the best.
Lastly, I would like to talk about two new key tools which we are adding to our suite of tools that we've talked to you about in the past. These tools are enabling us to deliver on our ambition. The fact is that we have an opportunity to grow in almost every category and almost every market, and as you will appreciate, we cannot do all at once. These two proprietary tools are helping us focus and prioritize our investments toward our biggest growth opportunities with the highest opportunity for return. The first is the consumer choice framework. It's a methodology that allows us to transcend category thinking and use an occasion-led lens to understand consumer motivations, trends, and opportunities.
This tool enables us to direct investments in our portfolio, keep our brands relevant to changing consumer tastes, and capture the growth cycles of categories within TBA at speed. The second tool is the market growth framework, which establishes clear roles for each of our markets based on external and internal factors, and these roles help us define growth priorities, KPIs, and where our investments should be directed. Ultimately, it helps us remain agile, act fast, and effectively channel the full power of our scale where it matters in this volatile world. Thank you for your attention. I'm going to now open the floor to Q&A. Remember, this is the first of four opportunities that you will have today.
So following this, you will then hear from some of my executive leadership team members, who will share some compelling examples of how we're executing against the strategic growth drivers that I mentioned moments ago. And I think at this point, I'll invite Lavanya up, and like I said, there's four Q&As. So, just so you know, when those Q&As will break, and if we can try to keep sort of the questions within the pieces, it'll just be helpful. This first part on sort of my section on kind of the foundational facts, current context, then we'll have one again after we've got a lot of the executive team and presidents coming up to present the growth strategies. We'll have actually two in that section.
We'll do one that I would say will be more of a focused on rest of world Q&A, and then we have split out a North America Q&A. And then we will also have a Q&A to talk about the medium-term guidance after Lavanya and I go through that and to talk about that. So that sort of frames it up.
All right. We'd like to ask Simon.
Yeah, thanks. It's Simon Hales from Citi. Thanks for the presentation, Debra. I just want to come back to LAC again. I'm just still struggling just to really understand what really changed between the end of September with the AGM statement and where we are today. I mean, is there something in terms of the internal management information systems that you have that meant there's perhaps a delay in you recognizing at the center what was really happening on the ground? How do we have confidence that there's not a risk in other markets of a repeat? I appreciate what you said about LAC being an isolated incident, but I'm still just trying to contextualize it all.
Sure. Well, first of all, I will say, remember, October is a very important month for us, and so there is a lot of information that comes in to October. You know, I mentioned in the presentation how much of Scotch is sold in Latin America in the first half, and the vast majority of kind of those depletions all happen in sort of that October, November, December timeframe. Actually, what might be helpful, because I've kind of talked about it, but maybe Alvaro, I mean, Alvaro's here. We've got the President of Latin America here. So maybe if you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what you've seen. You've been on the ground. I think you have, what, 20 years or so in the region?
Yeah, yeah.
You know it pretty well.
Hi, everybody. Can you hear me well? Sorry that my voice is a little bit soft, but I've been talking a lot the last few days. So look, I think, I think the question is about what have changed. Yeah? I think in August, we signaled some, you know, first of all, some weakness on consumer, some consumer downtrading, more volatility than expected, and some inventory issues, as Debra said, and specific in Brazil. So what have happened after that? So consumer volatility continue there, but there are two important aspects. One is, spirits has been underperforming TBA, which is the first time that we are seeing this. For example, in the case of Mexico, during the last two years, spirits have been growing between 8%-10%.
Q1 showed a decline of 5, which was a very rapid change that to adjust for us. In Latin America, Scotch is our largest category, yeah? And 63% of our sales, as they were to say, it happens in H1, yeah. The depletions of those, of that, the majority is between October, November, and December. So the other important data point was between September and October, when we got the orders, you know, from our distributors and the modern trade, which is the first channel that we attend, they were lower than what we're expecting. And at that moment in time, we knew that we had a bigger issue that, you know, we were expecting for, yeah. Why is that? It's because we do have. So how, how is our road to consumer in Latin America? We have. We attend distributors, the modern trade, and a few wholesalers.
For that level of our road to consumer, we have robust and solid information from sales, stock in trade. The second layer, which is more wholesalers, sub distributors, that goes to the fragmented on-trade and off-trade, we have less information. So, and that has been what is causing the problem for us to really anticipate, you know, to understand the entire value chain of the stock in trade that we have. So we have visibility of this first layer, and this is one of the first actions that we are taking, is normalizing this first part of the of our road to consumer, and we are making significant action of data. We are confident that by the end of H1, that job is going to be done.
Then, the second action for us that we are taking is maximizing our festive season, which is the most important part of the year for us, yeah? And to make sure that the execution happens, to accelerate the depletions, to help us to clean what is less clear for us, which is around... And it's just not for us, it's for the entire industry. That is this second layer of stock in trade and third layer of stock in trade that is in the market. In that context, we are gaining market share, yeah? And the only market that was an exception for that was Mexico, and during the last four weeks, we are seeing early signs that that market share is improving to get into positive.
So I think that was the combination of the volatility after the faster growth, plus the visibility that we have in the road to consumer, is what we are dealing with at this moment in time to address the issue. We are taking immediate action, as I said, and we are taking this very seriously, to address this first part, and then in January, we will have better visibility of after the execution of OND.
Very good. And then your second question on, on other markets. Thank you, Alvaro.
Yeah.
Um-
There are more questions about LAC?
Well, I'm sure there will be questions about LAC, but we know where you are. As far as other markets, look, this is quite a unique situation, certainly in developed markets. You know, we've, we've got more, you know, visibility all the way through that chain. And then, I, you know, I will say, actually, other emerging markets like, you know, Dayalan Nayager will talk about, you know, Africa at some point. We'll, we'll get him up here too. But, you know, in places like Africa, first of all, it's, it's mostly a beer business, which, you know, you just, because of the expiration dates, nobody wants to drink stale Guinness. So, you know, it's just a different setup there.
And then the other thing is that opaque layer is more like a mom-and-pop shop versus in Mexico, where you're talking about other wholesalers, right? So it's just a different level there. And then also, of course, John, you know, in APAC, you know, that's another kind of emerging market in the world where sometimes you don't have as good of visibility, but the difference there, that's quite a luxury portfolio in many of the markets like Malaysia, where it's just, you know, you don't have the same kind of. Remember, LAC has grown in our business tremendously over the past four years. It's a great business with great margins, and we've expanded that. You know, so over time, you know, you're seeing a lot of growth there.
That's really where it can be sometimes difficult to see exactly what's actually, you know, true consumption versus anybody building inventory, you know, until they stop ordering. But in this case, I think, look, the team is absolutely all over it. We will come back to you in January and give you an update. But we do feel, you know, certainly as we look around the globe, we knew we had an inventory problem in Brazil. Certainly, we did also flag that we had weaker consumer conditions, but things like this, you know, Mexico thing was really the, I would call it, the newer news, in that five weeks. And of course, this is an important consumption time period, so we will know more about the status of this in January.
Chris? Chris Pitcher.
Hi there, Chris Pitcher from Redburn Atlantic. I thank you, Alvaro, for all your answers and everything for the last couple of days. Slightly in your defense, are we missing the real issue here? That LAC, let's say it missed by 10%. If it's 10% of the group, that's one point, but you put up a chart saying the US market's growing 3%-4%. Your sequential improvement perhaps doesn't mean you're back into positive territory. So actually, what's happening here is the US has not recovered as quickly as you hoped to provide the safety net for all the other regions. And so what happened in LAC, in June, we were talking about the risk of a cyclical downturn in LAC. We've been through this many, many times.
What we haven't been through is the sort of gap you're seeing between the market and yourselves today in the U.S. Actually, the U.S. is the issue, not LAC.
... Well, actually, we are still looking at sequential improvement in North America. And remember, we did talk about this is a supply chain that has been normalizing. It is a consumer that's been normalizing. You know, but look, you look over the last 12 months, I, you know, in measured channels, what is it? 3.8%-3.9% growth. So actually, it – we're getting back. You're seeing from a consumer standpoint, kind of that normalization back to mid-single digits. And then, you know, we had said all along it would be gradual improvement in North America, and so that is what we're seeing. You know, no doubt, like, you know, as you look at North America sort of month to month, it is sort of. You know, I – that's why I say normalizing instead of normalized.
But, you know, but certainly we are still seeing that sequential improvement, and so of course, we would always like to see that come faster. But you also have to remember, in North America, we were still cycling. There were a lot of price increases last year, not just us, but elsewhere in the industry. So you still have a lot of things, you know, that I would say that are kind of normalizing out. But we are, you know, we're excited about what we see, you know, from consumer sentiment. We're excited to see that point of sale and the consumer really come back, and the rest of these supply chain things will, of course, follow along inside of that.
Can I just dig into the consumer sentiment you put up?
Yeah. Yeah.
How long have you been running that time series? How efficient has it been proven, and particularly your commentary around a, quite an optimistic view on the on-trade going into Christmas, that notoriously can change very quickly.
Yeah.
How comfortable are you as that a predictive tool? Because the... I come back to it, sequential improvement, you haven't confirmed growth-
Yeah
... so you could still be negative, and the gap to the market is 4 or 5 points, which we haven't seen in a long while. So how confident are you in those predictive tools?
I mean, look, it's sentiment. So as you know, consumers always, you know, actually, they usually—we actually find they usually under say what they're going to spend. Most people plan to spend less and then they end up spending more. That being said, that's why the most important thing is to really look at things sort of year on year, is what I would say. And so that's where we saw this low point back at February 20, February 2022. Actually, if you look at industry and how the industry grew in 2022, there was not a lot of growth. So actually, that was quite, I would say, quite aligned with ultimately what we saw in the market.
We also have external, you know, Morning Consult and sort of these type of things that they would've said kind of July of 2022 was sort of a consumer low point. So we've got multiple, both external and internal sources, that sort of pointed to that kind of time period of being fairly low for the consumer, and that the consumer is actually feeling better. Remember, this is questions about sort of our industry, right? So, you know, I would say, look, we've got great tools like Demand Radar that actually pull in and scrape external stuff, plus internal. We see it aligning with what then ultimately we see, you know, in the marketplace. But granted, it is, of course, sentiment, and there are things that happen, so it's, you know, not entirely predictive.
We do find that when we combine these data sources, we tend to get kind of the best view of it, and we are feeling good that it is not giving us a lower number. You know, but we're quite pleased to see that it's higher.
We get it every month.
Yeah.
So we're looking at it every month, Chris, and so, you know, if it changes, we will see it right away. Robert?
Robert Ottenstein, Evercore ISI. I was just wondering if you can talk about your exposure to the Middle East, which doesn't look like it's gonna get better anytime soon. And both kind of the direct impact, you know, I believe you have very large businesses in Israel and Lebanon, so probably not counting on too much growth there. But also, and more importantly, as well, you know, how you think other things may happen, things that we aren't seeing today, but you know, if all of a suddenly retailers have become more cautious, if travel, international travel, has started to slow or any other kind of sort of ramifications around the world that could, you know, that you're monitoring, that you're starting to see perhaps, you know, initial changes in trends? Thank you.
Yeah, you, I mean, you want to talk about it, what it means from a group level, or?
Yeah. So, you know, the Look, it's not a huge part of the total group, but it has had a meaningful impact on Europe. Now, Europe's growth in this half is going to be strong. We were expecting it to be stronger, if not for this, the impact in the Middle East. And the impact we're seeing there is the direct impact, as you said, Robert, on Israel and Lebanon, where, you know, things have come to a complete halt. But we've also seen a significant pullback in the business that we have in the rest of the Middle East. That's in the kind of the Gulf states. I think there are secondary impacts, definitely, that we will see from this. I mean, you're seeing the impact...
I mean, with the combination of the Ukraine war and the crisis in the Middle East, I mean, you know, you're seeing the rallies, you're seeing consumer sentiment being impacted by it. That's definitely for sure. And I don't know if John wants to add something about global travel.
Just from a global travel point of view, I mean, just to set some context, passenger numbers in general are really good now, back to pre-COVID levels. In fact, in Europe, they're actually higher-
... Sorry. I can hear me now. Just to set some context in global travel, just passenger numbers are actually quite good globally, apart from Asia, where the Chinese consumer isn't yet traveling at the rate we'd expected. In fact, in Europe, they're actually higher than pre-COVID levels. But we are seeing a bit of a fallout through some of the Middle East hubs and some travel, so we are watching that. So that is going to be a kind of a, I would say, a secondary impact on what is already- what has otherwise been a relatively buoyant channel for us.
Celine?
Thank you. Celine Pannuti from J.P. Morgan. Maybe I would like to go to a bit more of the midterm, Debra. You presented the presentation, the key points today, and some of them, as you said, were already from past strategies. So I wanted to understand, what do you think you will do differently? You mentioned that you think you could do better in terms of execution.
Yeah.
So if you could give us a bit of a steer on what exactly that means. I also noted, I know it may be more about Lavanya presentation, but, that within that midterm, it also means that you are increasing your A&P spend, to deliver the same. So, I mean, is it you can do more, but you need more resource? How do we think about the return on all of that? Thank you.
Yeah, I think... And you'll get a chance, we'll- you know, we will actually take you through some of these key places where we're really looking to invest behind, actually in this next session. So I won't steal too much of the thunder other than to say, you know, I laid out the four kind of key growth strategies. The driving on the, you know, our big brands, that, that is certainly more of a continue, of what we've been doing at Diageo, right? We've, many of you would have seen, like, our, our Scotch, presentation back in May. Certainly, tequila has been a big part of our growth and is one of our big brands, and certainly Guinness.
And so, you know, activating against all of our big global brands is clearly a big part, and our big global categories is certainly a chunk. The sort of the newer areas is, I think, this about expanding some of our footprint around the world, and I talked about this, you know, actually at the end of fiscal 2023, about taking tequila around the world. We'll talk a little bit about that today. There are also pockets of other opportunities for some of our brands, and you will hear from our presidents where we see those opportunities, to more, you know, more lift and shift, I would say, of some of the really exciting things that are happening.
We are seeing the speed of the consumer around the world really pick up on these trends quite quickly, and so we want to be able to be there and be leading in those emerging trends much faster. Innovation has always been part of Diageo. You know, frankly, I think it's a real core strength of ours. You know, if you think about our share, we tend to always overshare on our innovation that we launch.
But some of these new occasion areas, and I think our frame of moving from kind of category and very brand out to really looking at the consumer landscape of occasions and where we can play, so think about all the adjacency sort of areas, which, of which, you know, convenience has exploded. But there are certainly pockets already of things like non-alc, that we really see an opportunity in, and really going after these new occasions that are quite, not just, you know, great for Diageo, it really is quite expansive for the category as well. So, look, as we look at A&P, and we'll talk about more how this rolls up in the medium-term guidance and how this will work, we've been investing as Diageo. We want to continue to do those investments.
There's just some things in the operational, sort of the world that which we'll be operating in that's a little different going forward, but we can talk about that this afternoon. And then the fourth strategy on raise the bar on execution, we will, that's in your session. So the final session, we will talk about productivity at length. This is key for us. We see great opportunity here, but that is also going to... You know, these are big programs. This isn't just the everyday efficiency stuff. We've got some very big programs.
And then also, I am not going to steal Claudia's thunder and Sally's thunder on what we're doing in North America as well, on execution, and specifically around, you know, how we show up at point of sale and our route to consumer. So, stay tuned, and if we don't answer your question by the end of the day, we'll come back to you.
Laurence?
Hi, it's Laurence Whyatt at Barclays.
Hi, Laurence.
Debra, on slide 19, about the power of the middle class, you highlighted some statistics on both India and Latin America.
Yeah
... about the potential of those growing middle classes. Now, when we look at other sector companies, whether in spirits or in wider beverages, often China is highlighted as a key area for the growing middle class. You didn't put it on your slide. Is there a reason behind that? Do you see, has your potential growth expectations for China changed recently? How would you interpret that?
No. So, you know, actually, so China, of course, for us, remember, you know, what is it, John? 90% or, you know, or so of TBA is Baijiu.
Yeah, exactly.
Which we're in Baijiu, and absolutely, you know, look at that, and we, we do see the opportunity. It's just by the numbers, the India opportunity is, and you just that growing middle class is really, you know, special, to highlight. And then, you know, look, what Alvaro's been doing, you know, putting the Friday announcement aside, in Latin America, we, you know, we have certainly seen, just, you know, great opportunity in, in that too. So, it was more just about, you know, size and scope of numbers. We are certainly investing in China. We've got a lot of investments going into Baijiu, as well as the Chinese, the Chinese malt distillery, which is very exciting. I mean, that's just... It's an emerging area where, you know, we'll see how that, how that goes, but very exciting.
Lucy?
Thank you. Ann Gurkin with Davenport. I wanted to return back to LatAm and ask-
Yeah
about the consumer and the down trading. Is it different in this economic challenged environment versus past environments? And is the competitor environment also rational as well, or can you talk about the competitor behavior as well as in Lat-- excuse me, in LatAm?
Yeah. So from a consumer perspective, I don't think it's that different. I think what we are seeing is, during the last three years, what we have been doing is recruiting consumers from premium beer and other locally produced spirits. That has been the journey during the last three years. The down trading that we are seeing right now is going consumers from Scotch to other categories like vodka or gin, and in some cases, to beer, to beer again. But it's not that different versus what happened before. It's just that we are in a so much different position right now from a strength, that what we are making sure is that we are playing with the entire portfolio to make sure that those consumers that are down trading are coming back, are staying within the Diageo's brands.
The competitive landscape?
The competitive landscape, it's very active, especially on beer, due to the fact that during the last three years, we've been recruiting consumers from beer. We've been very active, you know, coming back to the on-trade, coming back to invest. For international spirits perspective, we continue gaining share, as I mentioned, and continue to be very active because that has been the case during the last three years, about us gaining share.
And then, Debra, if I could-
Yeah
... return to the U.S. You put up the slide about Diageo, U.S. distributor inventory levels within the range, but that data looked like it was through June of 2023. Do you have any data that runs through maybe September? What does that inventory level look like in that, in that graph?
Yeah, we're still very much in the range. It's just, you know, this is—these are all. So actually, I mean, we can look at inventory daily in North America. It's—and it's because we're so concentrated, particularly in spirits, we're concentrated in a couple of key strategic distributors. So, yeah, we are absolutely, you know, within that, within that range.
Say, no, no, no change.
Just no... Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I think, unless we get that audited, we can't ever put things up on the slide. So, you know, and our external auditors, you know, look at that, you know, before we put that up in a slide. You know, I will add, because this comes back to how different our Latin America business is versus sort of other downturns. The LAC business now has much more premium Scotch in the portfolio versus standard Scotch. And that's a real shift versus other downturns. So, you know, so certainly, even downturning from sort of premium Scotch can still land in our portfolio. We don't have to sort of chase that down.
We've got now a Scotch ladder actually in LAC that you've built over the last four years.
James.
Back to the sell out versus sell in again.
Yeah.
Your big components of your variable compensation, both bonus and LTIP, are based around sales, so sell in. Have you thought about whether there's a way of adjusting that to more reflect sell out, and actually pay people for executing the culture?
Yeah. I mean, look, on sell out, like I... I mean, Claudia can speak to this in you know in North America, but certainly in our incentives, we have individual bonus incentives as well. Literally, when you talk to the teams, they will talk about depletions, like looking, no other president is saying no.
Yeah.
I mean, it like, literally, that's what people talk about. So it really is about depletions and DNSB. So that kind of measure on the top line, that's a one, you know, that's a one Diageo measure, but the individual kind of regions and the individuals that work within our commercial organization are all about depletions. And in fact, if people end up with inventory that is over, like if it looks like you actually have to come like before. First of all, within the region, you're going to be standing up in front of the region management team, and then it'll even come up to the audit committee.
I-
You want to talk about that?
Yeah, just that. I mean, look, I think, for the people who are actually doing the selling, their bonus structures is predominantly sell out. Okay? The group bonus is a very small component of the frontline salesperson's incentive structures. At the total group level, the other thing that we do have is this, what we call the IRC, the Remuneration Committee. Louise and I sit on it, and before we pay out any bonus, we do have a quality check, where we look at whether the results have been achieved in a high-quality way. And so stock and trade is a very large part of that. You know, margin progression is another part of it.
So if someone is achieving an NSV number or a depletions number in a non-quality way, we use full discretion to pull back on those incentives. So it's not just an... it's not a mathematical calculation only. There is significant checks and balances that we have internally within the company to ensure that results are being delivered in a high-quality way.
... Oh, John?
If I may, just our general managers are focused on one thing, and that is market share. We have a significant, and the biggest bonus modifier for any country, is the general manager being able to demonstrate that they've grown market share in the year. That is the delta on the bonus that they get for the entire team in that business, and that's a plus or a minus.
Yeah.
I think that's just a really important focus for our managers.
I was gonna say, so that's even beyond depletions, but actually a sell-out, of course, to the consumer. So, you know, not all places we have good enough data to be able to, you know, to fully do that, but depletions... But in other words, we are not, this is not, and I will just repeat this, and we have many, many people on the senior management team that were here ten years ago, or it's even maybe more than that now. But, you know, of, of that kind of selling culture, that is not what it is today at all. So we try to measure as far down in the, in that supply chain, as we, you know, possibly can, as we're putting together incentives, you know, for people that are in, in our or, you know, commercial organization, so that there is no adverse incentive there.
Anybody? Oh, you got it. Over there.
Hi, Jeremy Fialko, HSBC. Just one question coming back to LATAM again. A lot of us here look at many other kind of consumer staples companies across sort of food, household products, personal care, et cetera, et cetera. And I guess we came through this reporting season, and pretty much all of the other companies that we looked at had reported actually pretty robust results from Latin America. I can, you know, you can go through these, you know, double-digit growth from many, many other players with a good sort of volume and price balance. So, you know, what is it you feel is specific about your categories that have meant that the sort of spirits industry has just been so dramatically different to what all of these other parts of the kind of consumer staples arena have delivered?
I think it's, I think it's the premium nature of spirits and what it's become, Jeremy. I think, that's, that's probably the main difference, because we are gaining share. So we're gaining share compared to the other spirits, and that's because we do have kind of that, that price ladder, of which we've got standard Scotch, and we've got other things that people can trade down into. But that is, you know, the... These are quite premium products, and it, it had really been premiumizing, which is why we also, remember, have really great margins in Latin America, which, isn't always the case sometimes, you know, in some of the other, you know, companies that, that we might be compared to.
Mitch?
Thank you. Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank. If I can ask another question on LAC, please. So you, you said that you only realized October was weak very recently. I guess, what have you... You've also said that November and December are very important months. What have you assumed for November and December with the -20 that you've pointed to for 1H? And then-
Yeah. So a couple things. So we did know the consumer environment was weak. I mean, that's why we talked about-- That's how we had built the inventory to begin with, that we were disappointed by on sort of the World Cup and what was coming after. We saw a weakening consumer environment. I think what Alvaro referred to, so in Brazil specifically, I think we had, and frankly identified that. I think the Mexico change was the one that-
Yeah
... that changed quite dramatically from our end of year when we had talked about that. And of course, we were not aware of really having built up big inventory and stock in Mexico, so that was sitting at lower levels, clearly. So that weakening environment, I think that's the big change. I don't know if there's anything you want to add-
No, I think it's that.
But we can't talk about going forward.
I think it's that. What we are assuming that we want to have the right execution during October, November, and December. That is the best assumption that we have at this moment in time to help us with, to solve, as I said, this second layer issue that we faced.
If I just add on to that, Mitch, I mean, like, one of the conscious decisions we have made here, as we've come up with this very disappointing issue in Latin America, is to keep the business still funded, to be able to carry the depletions out. Because the best thing that we can do is to ensure-
Yeah
... that, you know, we keep a very healthy category, we keep our brands really healthy. And if the consumption happens at the end point, you know, in these very big holiday occasions through Black Friday and Christmas, that's the best solve for any issue that we have in any market, and not, not the least in Latin America at present. And so that's definitely something that-
Focus
... we have kept funded, and, you know, that, that, that's what we're doing. That, that's... Our assumption is that, you know, these are good, strong plans, as the team have built, and we will keep the business funded to carry the consumption out. And we're seeing that come through. When we, you know, Alvaro and team have weekly data that measures what's happening in a, from a consumption perspective in the tracked channels , and we're definitely seeing that. We'll take one final question for this Q&A segment. We'll go with John.
Thank you. John Pragoff from Artisan Partners. I'm just curious, you know, the cost of capital has increased, of course, for everyone over time. You talked a lot about the investments you're making. I'm wondering if there are investments you're not making or where the hurdle rate has increased, and that's caused you to pull back in certain areas, just in an environment of scarce resources, you know, for everyone.
I think we're always making choices.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I think, I think that's... You know, there's, as Debra said, you know, there's opportunity for us to grow pretty much in every brand and category in pretty much every region. And so there's... We're always being choiceful about which do we fund first.... and which do we fund next? And then to your point on the hurdle rate, as the hurdle rate goes up, I mean, what we expect to get, you know, from, from acquisitions or from any, CapEx expenditure also go up. So we do update the hurdle rate regularly for all of our, investment decision-making choices. Anything specific that you would add that we would want, that we haven't done? I mean, there's-
No, I mean, look, and, you know, I still come back to this is, you know, this is a really critical time, you know, of the year for us, and, you know, we are very pleased with where we're, you know, the trajectory that we're on in this sort of 90% of the market. And so, you know, and Alvaro has talked, you know, a bit, more than a bit, about what all we are doing to try to overcome and get through this, this LAC issue as soon as we can, and really make sure then that we can, you know, kind of clear that as we go forward. So thank you, and I think we're. Are we on to-
Yeah, we're on the break until 10:30 A.M.
Oh, we're on a break. You get a break. Very good.
Thank you.
Welcome back, everyone. As I mentioned this morning, in this next session, my colleagues will explore the strategic priorities that I outlined earlier. They will give you a virtual trip around the world by showcasing some powerful examples and case studies of where we're putting our strategy into action. So back in June, you heard a lot about Scotch globally, and we highlighted Scotch in Latin America. So today, we thought we'd give you a chance to see another example, India, a key growth market where we see exciting opportunities for Scotch. So I will start by introducing you to Hina, our Chief Executive of Diageo India, who unfortunately can't be with us today, but has pre-recorded our first example of how we will continue to drive faster growth in our largest categories.
Hello, everyone. Sorry, I can't be in New York City in person, but you will have an opportunity to chat with three of my key team members this afternoon. As Debra said, we are going to be looking into our largest categories and showing you how we are going to get even more growth out of them in the future. To start, I will give you some key facts about our largest categories globally. Our top four largest categories are Scotch, beer, tequila, and vodka. Together, they represent 62% of our total FY 2023 reported NSV, almost half of reported sales volume in equivalent units, and contributed to FY 2023 organic sales growth by 98%. Scotch alone made up a quarter of our FY 2023 NSV, and tequila overtook vodka in FY 2022.
This Big Four have consistently represented more than 50% of the reported NSV over the last 5 years. These are categories made up of iconic brands, including Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Don Julio, and Smirnoff. They are rooted in culture and delivering quality growth. In a moment, I'm going to discuss how we are growing the whiskey category in India, and Dayalan will show you how we are driving global growth in Guinness. India, my home country, is one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic economies in the world. It has a large and young consumer base. There is a rising demand for premium products, and the consumer occasions landscape is changing. The demographics in the region present a large opportunity. By 2030, 150 million Indian consumers will enter the legal purchasing age for alcohol, accounting for 25% of the global increase.
India's middle class and affluent population is also growing rapidly, creating a strong demand for premium products and experiences. By 2030, India will have 700 million people in this segment. These consumers have higher disposable incomes and are looking for quality, variety, and innovation in their choices of alcohol. The nature of TBA consumption occasions is also changing in India. In the last five years, the share of familiar occasions has declined, while the share of socializing occasions has increased from 52% to 66%. This emerging shift offers potential for expanding repertoire, increasing experimentation, and opportunities for new experiences. In this context, India is the largest whiskey market by volume in the world. It has a deep-rooted whiskey culture with a long and rich history of appreciation for whiskey that embraces both domestically produced and imported whiskeys.
Whiskey is the most valuable category in the TBA market in India, accounting for 52% of the retail sales value. In fact, India is one of the few countries in the world where whiskey is nearly twice the size of beer. Looking specifically at Scotch in India, within whiskey, Scotch accounts for 13% of the total whiskey value in the country. It is the fastest-growing and most profitable segment as consumers seek higher quality and more aspirational products. In the last 4 years, there has been massive premiumization in the market, with mid-price segments growing at 10%, primary scotches at 17%, and imported scotches growing significantly faster at 32%, while lower priced segments are declining at 2%. However, there is still huge headroom to grow, as Scotch penetration is still below 10%. So how did we begin to take advantage of this opportunity?...
Post-COVID, we took the lead and invested ahead of industry by focusing on our premium and luxury commercial business unit and stepping up on building new marketing capabilities in cultural integration. Our investments are paying off. We have doubled our Scotch NSV over the last 2 years. As a result, our premium and luxury business contributing 31% of total net sales in FY 2023, up from 19% in FY 2019, of which Scotch is 25% in FY 2023, up from 13% in FY 2019. We have recruited 10 million new consumers into Scotch, almost double that of our nearest competitor, and built a strong competitive position in Scotch, with close to 50% share in the segment, 1.4 times our nearest competitor. We now have three Scotch brands at over 1 million cases, each contributing almost equally to Diageo's overall market share.
Johnnie Walker is the most recalled, strongest equity brand in imported Scotches in India, with almost 2x salience and equity of its nearest competitor. Two other crown jewels in Scotch are Black Dog and Black and White, targeting mixed gender consumption in shared occasions. Broadening our footprint beyond Scotch, I'd now like to introduce you to a local Indian single malt called Godawan. For those in New York, I hope you had the chance to try Godawan last night at dinner. India's young affluent have a newfound pride in their Indian provenance, alongside contributing towards a better, sustainable world. Recognizing that these consumers are global natives with an affinity for Indian artisanship and mindful luxury, we crafted Godawan, a luxury-priced artisanal Indian single malt that is proudly Indian, given its provenance in Rajasthan.
Godawan has sustainability at its core, working to conserve the great Indian bustard bird, an almost extinct species in the water-stressed state of Rajasthan. I could not be prouder of how this product, Godawan, has had a really strong start in its first year. Its credibility is strong. Our distillery in Alwar is Alliance for Water Stewardship Gold Certified, and each bottle we sell contributes to bird conservation. One of the most widely awarded Indian malts, it has won 21 international awards across liquid, packaging, brand building, and design. To mark the first year of Godawan, we launched a limited collector's edition of just 100 bottles, which was pre-sold at $1,000 per bottle to private collectors and clients. Our final whiskey success leveraged our consumer insights capabilities to recruit consumers in new occasions.
We saw that bourbon had grown 24% in India in the last 3 years, and we identified an opportunity space in the highest priced segment in Indian whiskey, upper prestige, and so Royal Challenge American Pride was born. It is the first bourbon-based liquid in its segment, marketed with American style culture imagery that is very aspirational in India: camper vans, barbecue, outdoors, American pop music, et cetera. It also pioneers a new packaging innovation, the hipster pocket pack, which contributes almost half of the volumes today because it's convenient, easy to try, and is a great fit for the shared occasion. It has become the fastest growing brand in the industry to hit over 350,000 cases in FY 2023 within a year of launch, adding an incremental over 2 points of market share in the segment, according to our estimates.
90% of those who tried it repeated their purchase. I'm truly delighted with our performance in India and how we have accelerated growth of whiskey in the region. I'd like to close the India story by sharing a video on Royal Challenge American Pride. Thank you.
Thank you, Hina, and good morning, everyone. I now have the honor and privilege to talk to you about one of our most iconic brands, Guinness. Guinness' unique magic is that it is a global brand with a local heartbeat. It has been loved by vibrant communities all around the world since 1759. In FY 2023, Guinness delivered its strongest performance ever. We had strong growth in every region across the world, and on a value share basis, Guinness is the number one beer brand in Ireland and in Nigeria. Something that we are very proud about is that in GB, within the on-trade and on a value share basis, it is the number one beer brand over the last 12 months. You know, Guinness has a loyal and growing consumer base....
Its growth is achieved by following simple and clear strategy that is built on three growth drivers. The first is magnetic purpose and culture. This is about telling authentic stories and taking actions that make Guinness relevant and attractive to both younger and more diverse consumers, while also reminding them of the great taste and the quality of Guinness. The second growth driver is inviting experiences. We have a growing network of Guinness brand homes across the world. We have the Guinness Storehouse in Ireland, we have the Open Gate Brewery in Baltimore, the recently opened the Taproom in Chicago, and in 2025, Guinness Old Brewer's Yard is set to open its doors in Covent Garden.
We activate Guinness throughout the year around cultural events in the calendar to keep it top of mind. St. Patrick's Day, of course, but we also activate Guinness around football in the US, rugby in Europe, and we have soccer in Asia and Africa. The last growth driver is beautiful Guinness everywhere. This is about offering a range of products that meet the different consumer needs and ensuring that we are available and accessible in more places and spaces.
Guinness never stands still. It is always pushing the boundaries in terms of innovation, and this is why we launched Guinness Zero Point Zero. Through consumer research, we have identified that moderation was an opportunity which Guinness innovation could unlock. We created Guinness Zero Point Zero to tap into moderation while staying true to the Guinness heritage and high quality standards. We used data and consumer insights to identify the gap in the market for a non-alcoholic beer that tasted great and had a distinctive flavor.
We invested in creating a liquid that met the high standards of Guinness and our consumers, and we were delighted when Esquire Magazine named us the King of Non-Alcoholic Beers in January this year. You know, Guinness 0.0 is a breakout growth opportunity for our business. It has been broadened our recruitment potential by appealing to younger, more female, and more ethnically diverse consumers. It has also opened consumption occasions, and Guinness 0.0 is the fastest growing, non-alc brand within the off-trade globally. It has added 500,000 incremental consumers to the Guinness brand on a year-on-year basis, and it is also leading our positive drinking agenda, as demonstrated by our responsible drinking campaign for St. Patrick's Day. That's the biggest... the single biggest day for Guinness consumption on an annual basis. Guinness 0.0 is a clear growth opportunity for our business.
It is driving recruitment from a broader consumer demographic. For example, in the U.K., 29% of 0.0 drinkers are female, when compared to 20% for Guinness Stout. In the U.S., 44% of Guinness 0.0 drinkers are LPA 34, when compared to 27% for Guinness Stout. One that we are very excited about as we embark on our global rollout is that 17% of Guinness 0.0 drinkers are Asian Americans, when compared to 8% for Guinness Stout. So 0.0 is one of the industry's biggest innovations. In FY 2023, in the U.S., 0.0 had 3% contribution towards the Guinness brand, but contributed circa 20-27% to the total Guinness growth.
In Great Britain, this contribution was 13%, and 0.0 is the fastest growing non-alcoholic beer, and it has 11.5% share. Looking forward, we see a clear opportunity for us to go deeper and broader with 0.0. We believe our strong brand equity would enable us to grow Guinness 0.0 at scale in our stronghold markets, and we believe we can go even broader than this by finding opportunities in new markets where we believe the liquid would resonate. So we have just seen the great liquid innovations from Guinness. I'm now going to share and talk to you about two exciting technical innovations. We know that consumers around the world want to enjoy Guinness Draught, no matter where they are. That's why we created Guinness MicroDraught and NitroSurge.
These are both revolutionary technological solutions that enable consumers and outlets to pour a perfect pint of Guinness directly from a can. You know, NitroSurge has launched and scaled in GB and Ireland, and we believe it has unlocked the next wave of transformational growth for the stout category. It is driving premiumization and penetration within the off-trade, and in Ireland, it is also appealing to a younger consumer, where 40% of NitroSurge consumers are LPA 34. We also developed Guinness MicroDraught to bring the magic of Guinness Draught to every corner of the world, with a primary focus in the on-trade. This award-winning, cutting-edge technology serves beautiful, fresh Guinness Draught on tap in outlets around the world, no matter what their size is. So you should think of this as a keg in a can, so there's no outlet that is too small.
We are confident that both Guinness and Guinness MicroDraught and NitroSurge will continue to grow the stout category while delighting our consumers around the world. This closes out our first strategic priority. From Godawan to Guinness, we are accelerating growth in our largest categories. I'm now going to hand over to Cristina, John, and Alvaro, and they are going to talk to you about unleashing the power of our portfolio while expanding our footprint worldwide. Thank you.
Thanks, Dayalan. This session is all about how we are going to unleash the power of our portfolio and expand our footprint. Essentially, how do we think globally but act locally? We'll talk about how we leverage these incredible brands that have heritage, history, and global equity, and activate them with executional excellence and pace locally in more markets. We aim to have the right portfolio for the correct occasions in the right geographies across consumer groups, from the newly turned LPA consumer through to the ultra-high-net-worth individual. I will now show you how we are unleashing the power of our tequila portfolio and expanding our footprint globally. Then, John will focus on the luxury opportunity in Asia and how we have expanded our portfolio to win. And then Alvaro will tell you the story of Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind, dreamed up in Mexico and now expanding globally.
Starting with our Diageo tequila portfolio expansion around the world, it's tequila time! We have a strong and diverse portfolio of industry-leading tequila brands that are well-positioned to capture the growing demand for this category around the world. Our tequila brands are not only premium, but they're also versatile and aspirational. Within our luxury portfolio, Don Julio is positioned as the authentic Mexican tequila brand, where Casamigos is positioned as an approachable lifestyle tequila. Our brands appeal to a wide range of consumers and occasions across cultures and markets. They are enjoyed by both males and females equally, and can be enjoyed in many different ways, from sipping to mixing, from casual to formal, from day to night. The breadth of our footprint gives us a competitive advantage. As the category grows and evolves, consumers want to experience our brands across different variants and across the price ladder.
Our presence in Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, and Cristalino ensures that we are well-positioned to participate. At our preliminary results back in August this year, Debra talked about her desire to take tequila to the four corners of the earth, doing for tequila what Johnnie Walker did for Scotch, and we are excited about making this a reality. tequila is transcending the U.S. and Mexico and breaking out into the rest of the world. Global tequila category is growing three times faster versus international spirits in the last five years. It's expanding beyond the U.S.A. and Mexico. Over 60 countries grew 50% year-over-year. And as the category grows, Diageo continues to maintain its leadership, representing one-fourth of global tequila sales with sustained market gains.
Don Julio is the number one selling tequila brand globally as of 2022, and Casamigos is the fastest growing tequila brand amongst the largest 30 brands, growing at 70% in the past 5 years. To show you the reach and impact of our tequila portfolio, I will share you some examples of how we have been activating our range of tequilas globally. I will start by focusing on our recent launch in Southern Europe. Firstly, we identified a number of consumer insights that we believed would be a strong foundation to drive growth. People in Southern Europe are drinking less but better, and super premium spirits are outgrowing total spirits. The aperitivo occasion, where consumers have a drink and a light snack before a meal, is very popular in Southern Europe, and one where we believe that tequila can be positioned to compete.
Luxury tequila has doubled in size in Southern Europe over the last year, but some consumers still perceive tequila as a drink for low-quality shots. So we had to overcome that barrier with a new serve that would position our tequilas as a premium, trendy option, simplifying their choice and creating demand by really educating them on our brands. tequila penetration in Europe is relatively low, but we see it as a great opportunity and one where we believe we have the right portfolio to disrupt, engage, and win. We are confident that we can harness our global equity and recruit globally at pace. Leveraging off these insights, we identified the cocktail, the Paloma, as our key strategy to capture the opportunity. The Paloma is a grapefruit-based, refreshing cocktail that is very visually appealing. The Paloma aligns with the local preference for long drinks.
It also taps into the global trend of consumers seeking out new and innovative cocktails, as evidenced by its rising popularity. It is the 13th best-selling cocktail in the world, climbing two spots in the last year. For the on-trade, the Paloma offers a simple and adaptable serve that can be customized to different tastes and occasions. Casamigos and Don Julio are the ideal choices to lead this strategy. We have launched tequila in more than 15 countries across Europe, including five countries in Southern Europe. We plan to drive the Paloma at scale across our European markets in fiscal 2024 with both Casamigos and Don Julio, and we have already seen encouraging results. Casamigos is the fastest growing super premium plus tequila in Italy, and our Paloma activations have generated high conversion rates and increased our share of tequila.
In Spain, we saw a 60% conversion rate from trial to purchase, and tequila was one of the largest drivers of growth in Southern Europe in fiscal 2023, contributing to 20% of the net sales growth. We use consumer insights to inform our strategic approach. We understand what motivates and delights our customers in different markets. As a result, we leverage the power of our tequila portfolio in a different way across Asia. We tapped into the demand for luxury products among Asian consumers and positioned Don Julio 1942 as our super premium tequila as our flagship. We positioned this variant as an icon of stylish celebrations. 1942 entered the most aspirational on-trade venues, becoming the new luxury brand for high-energy occasions. Across many activations, local influencers and musicians created and shared engaging social content with wide reach. This translated into strong results.
tequila was the fastest growing category in APAC last year. We also launched the new Don Julio 1942 experiential platform across airports to drive recruitment. You may have seen the Heathrow Terminal 5 activation this summer, which drove exceptional brand visibility and engagement to a wide audience. I will now play a short video to show you how we are activating tequila globally, from the Paloma cocktail at après-ski in the Alps, to Mediterranean beach clubs, and from Don Julio 1942 in the luxury market of Southeast Asia, to global travel outlets. Our brands are creating exceptional activations and experiences that engage consumers and drive brand awareness. I will then hand over to John, who will continue to demonstrate how we're using the power of our portfolio by taking you further into the world of luxury in Asia.
Thanks, Cristina. To continue the theme of ultra-premium, cool nightlife, trendsetters, and luxury products, I'm gonna take you over to Asia, specifically to Greater China and Vietnam. I want to talk to you about the luxury opportunity in APAC and demonstrate how the combination of our approach, along with deep consumer insights, is driving recruitment and delivering quality, sustainable growth. Asia is the largest and fastest growing region for luxury consumption in the world, accounting for 38% of global luxury spend. Now, within that, China is the largest and one of the most important luxury markets, representing 17% of the market today, and projected to reach 25% by 2030.
In addition, while China is the largest TBA market in the world, international spirits only account for 3% of TBA, and hence we see a very strong runway for growth for our luxury spirits in China. Beyond China, we see opportunities for Diageo to grow in the luxury segment across the entire APAC region. We have a deep and nuanced understanding of luxury consumer segments and their evolving preferences and behaviors. In 2022, we launched a study with a whopping 9,000 luxury alcohol shoppers across Greater China and Southeast Asia to segment the luxury alcohol market. Today, we understand more deeply who these consumers are, what matters to them, what they purchase, and how they interact with brands. The luxury consumer is becoming younger, more diverse, and more inclusive.
It's shifting from older status cues of establishing wealth by displaying what you own, what assets you have, to a more youthful, diverse, and progressive cues, which places a higher value on experiences, connections, and brands that represent shared values. This creates new luxury, new opportunities, rather, for luxury brands to engage with consumers in a more meaningful and authentic way. We have used our insights to craft our approach on how to win in luxury across the region. We position our brands to win in culture, position them as beacons of desire, create captivating experiences, and aim to execute flawlessly at every touch point.... We understand the consumer needs and preferences, and we are building our brands from the top. I would now like to bring some examples to life on our approach to driving recruitment, share gains, and net sales growth.
In Greater China, within Johnnie Walker, we have shifted our model to build a brand from the top through Johnnie Walker Blue Label. We believe this creates more aspiration for the brand, which drives equity benefits across all the labels in the portfolio, including Johnnie Walker Red Label and Black Label. Now, Chinese New Year is a key opportunity for us to leverage this strategy. It's the biggest occasion for gifting and celebration in spirits category, representing around a third of annual category value in spirits. Our limited edition Blue Label packs for Chinese New Year are highly sought after, selling at 20% premium to Johnnie Walker Blue Label. On screen, the middle picture is from our latest innovation for the Year of the Dragon.
It is a limited edition pack created through our second collaboration with James Jean, the iconic Taiwanese American artist and cultural pioneer, who is very connected in culture. This is part of a series that was created in China, but also distributed globally to the Chinese diaspora, generating over $40 million sales annually. More importantly, you can see how our approach of building Johnnie Walker from the top is successfully driving trial, NSV, and market share across the trademark. Now, let's look at Johnnie Walker beyond China and how the same approach has been implemented in the wider region. Southeast Asia is a fast-growing market, with 20-25 million new consumers entering the mid- to high-income range between 2022 and 2030. And within Southeast Asia, Vietnam is particularly exciting, with almost 100 million people and one of the fastest-growing number of high-net-worth individuals in the region.
Again, we are building the trademark from the top. This visual is when we collaborated with the royal silverware craftsmen in Vietnam to make three precious Johnnie Walker XR gifts, each retailing at $10,000 each. Our results in Vietnam are outstanding. We have more than doubled our total business market share in 3 years, and our Johnnie Walker luxury portfolio is at the heart of that success, growing 88%. And on top of that, we benefit from the trickle-down effect of equity, growing strongly and winning share in our premium core business with the total Johnnie Walker trademark, including Black Label and Red Label, up 57%. Moving beyond blends and into single malts. I'm delighted to say that Mortlach has taken Asia by storm.
Now, for those of you who don't know, this brand, it is 200 years old but was only launched in Asia in 2018. Mortlach has a unique distillation process and a beautiful and bold liquid profile, and is positioned right at the top end of our malts portfolio. Now, we have used a tentpole strategy to position Mortlach as a beacon of desire, using high-end liquids, such as this Mortlach 30-year-old, which you can see on screen, to drive aspiration, adopting an approach of available for the few, desired by the many. Mortlach 30-year-old has a retail recommended price, a recommended retail price, rather, of $4,500, with nearly two-thirds of regional sales taking place in Greater China. And again, you can see the strong trial, NSV, and market share results delivered across the entire Mortlach luxury portfolio within China.
Now, staying within single malts, Singleton is our number one malt in Greater China and leads the market in equity scores like craftsmanship, a crucial metric for Chinese consumers. We believe it's critical to create captivating experiences to drive luxury recruitment. An example of this is with Singleton in China. We brought the brand to life with an exclusive money-can't-buy experience for key influencers, the Singleton Discovery Tour on the Great Wall of China, which then became compelling content that we amplified across our media ecosystem to reach a wider audience. The Singleton is our leading malt brand in Greater China. The brand is growing and premiumizing rapidly. In fiscal 2020, only 10% of the brand was Singleton 15-year-old and above, but thanks to a 47% growth CAGR, now Singleton 15-year-old and above account for over 25% of the total trademark sales.
Let me now bring that to life. Luxury Cool in Action. Staying within Singleton, we are learning that in luxury, leveraging our deep understanding of consumers and occasions and delivering razor-sharp execution, we can unlock and drive transformational growth. The Singleton 13-Year-Old Golden Trésor in Taiwan is a great example of how we can drive premiumization.... Now for context, Singleton is the number one malt in Taiwan. Post-COVID, our consumer insights indicated that occasions had shifted from big group and business gatherings, which tend to be high energy in out, in outlet, and kind of male-dominated to more lively, mixed gender in-home occasions. Wine was making inroads in this new occasion against Scotch. Leveraging this insight, we saw an opportunity to innovate and capture this growing segment with a unique offering, the Singleton 13-Year-Old Golden Trésor.
This is a premium expression of our signature malt, finished in Sauternes casks to give it a delicate, wine-like finish. It appeals to both new and existing Scotch drinkers and elevates the in-home occasion with its elegant packaging and presentation. This has been a very successful innovation, executed through great insight, allow ng us to charge, upcharge 40% more with just one additional year of aging. Let me now play a short clip to bring this to life in a bit more detail.
The Singleton 13-year Golden Trésor. A radiant golden malt, finished in ex-Sauternes wine casks for a honey-glazed smoothness. Filling your gatherings with sweet, radiant joy. The Singleton 13-year Golden Trésor. Make it shine!
Our approach to win in luxury is driving recruitment, penetration, and share gains. We know this approach drives results, and we're looking to extend our reach in APAC beyond Scotch and go further into exciting new categories like luxury tequila, which you heard from Cristina, and also in super premium gin. I'm now gonna hand over to Alvaro, who's going to take you to an entirely different world, the story of Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind. Thank you.
Thank you, John. So come join me for a very quick look at the wonderful, colorful world of Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind and its global expansion. The Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind success story began with the creation of a cultural connection through a locally relevant flavor, innovation, and packaging in Mexico, utilizing one of our core brands, Smirnoff. We developed an exceptional product, and once people tried it, they fell in love with the taste, and our, and our job was putting that beautiful liquid into consumers' hands. The introduction of this hot and unique flavor profile didn't go unnoticed, as other categories, such as Burger King, embraced this trend with offerings like the Tamarindo King Burger. The outcomes were outstanding. We successfully recruited 5 million new consumers into the Smirnoff brand, effectively reversing the decline in the vodka category.
Notably, many of these new consumers were previously non-spirit drinkers, with our data indicating that Spicy Tamarind primarily attracted beer drinkers, resulting in a 23% increase in the category. Furthermore, we established a strong commercial emotional connection with the younger consumers, with the brand earning the title of the most loved brand among LPA 24-year-olds. But we quickly realized that there was a bigger opportunity for the Spicy Tea, as we affectionately call it. Through data tapping into cultural momentum and consumer trends, we identified the global rise of Mexican culture, cuisine, and interest in spicy foods. This enable us to really define the size of the price and consumer base and think beyond markets which have large Mexican populations. This was evident by the U.S. rollout of Spicy Tamarind.
Although we initially started in a state with a strong Mexican American population, our hypothesis was confirmed. It is truly for anyone interested in spicy flavors. 75% of people in key markets research identify as spicy enthusiasts. In the U.S. today, in fact, over 41% of total Spicy Tamarind volume is coming from non-Hispanic consumers. As an example, in Michigan, a state where nearly 75% of the population identify as white, non-Hispanic, we are seeing a Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind increase both in share and distribution, proving that this is a variant not just for Hispanic consumers. It is really a multicultural offer. 33% of drinkers, of drinkers being white and 8% being African American, and we have not stopped there.
Enabled by the credibility of the known and the known and trusted Smirnoff brand, which facilitates confidence in consumer cross-cultural exploration, Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind will be in 11 countries by the end of fiscal year 2024, with further expansion planned for fiscal year 2025. It has become the number one fastest growing flavored vodka in the U.S. So to summarize, we have demonstrated that whether it is in a beach bar in Greece, a nightclub in Shanghai or a Mexican house party, we are unleashing the power of our portfolio in incredible ways, and we are expanding our footprint both into new occasions and new geographies. Now, for the next stop on our trip, I will be handing back over to Cristina, who is going to land us in Europe, and then Sally and Claudia, who are going to take us across the pond to the U.S.
Thanks, Alvaro. Our third strategic growth strategy is innovation to recruit into new occasions. We aim to understand and shape the future of how people across the world will socialize. We use data and technology to ensure that we have our finger on the pulse when it comes to consumer trends today, tomorrow, and into the future. Our team of innovators constantly seek to push the boundaries and create new products, tastes, experiences, platforms, patterns, and business models that consumers will love and will create long-term, sustainable growth for Diageo. We embrace a test and learn entrepreneurial mindset, and aren't afraid to look beyond our own walls to build our expertise, because staying ahead of our consumers demands a radical approach to innovation and no small amount of bravery. To introduce you to our world of innovation, here's a short video.
As demonstrated by the video, we could talk all day about innovation, and we only have time for two case studies. I will be talking to you now about the development and growth of our non-alc category, and Sally will be bringing to life our ready-to-serve innovations, and why they are so strategically important to us here in the U.S. Innovation is a strategic growth engine for Diageo. It already delivers scale and sustainable growth across markets and brands. We are a leader on global innovation and over-index in our share of TBA innovation. We are winning share in innovation, and over the last 10 years, we have launched the highest number of innovations on average per year.
We have some of the most loved and traditional brands in the industry, and yet we constantly seek to innovate tomorrow's products, to drive relevancy and excitement, and evolve to meet the future needs of consumers. Our non-alc products are doing exactly that. We are leading and shaping the non-alc spirits category. From beer with Guinness 0.0, which Diane spoke about earlier, to our spirits brands. The non-alc category is being driven by the growing trend of wellness, and whilst it's still a nascent category, it's growing fast. We believe the category has strong growth potential. It's margin accretive, and it supports, supports our positive drinking ambitions. The non-alc category, spirits, is forecast to grow with a CAGR of 11% over the period 2022 to 2027.
Acting on this trend and growth opportunity, we acquired Seedlip via Distill Ventures in 2016 and have created and launched Gordon's 0.0, Tanqueray 0.0, and just recently, Captain Morgan 0.0, our first non-alc dark spirit. We hold the leading market share position in the three largest non-alc markets globally: U.K., U.S.A., and Germany. In Spain and Italy, we hold 67% and 77% respectively, and we are shaping the category. We have a real strength in our liquid expertise. Our liquids are not just moderating alternatives, they are premium drinks that deliver on taste and quality. The taste profile of our non-alc versions matches the taste profile of the trademark.
For those of you in New York with us today, we have prepared a range of cocktails drawn from our Zero Zero portfolio for you to enjoy at the showcase this afternoon. Our non-alc portfolio has enormous potential to grow across markets and occasions. 80% of Diageo's current non-alc sales comes from only five markets. We see a large opportunity for us to drive incremental share and drive recruitment in a broader range of occasions, particularly daytime occasions, where consumers love the experience of a non-alc adult drink. Tanqueray Zero Zero is a great example of this, a new moderation option that appeals to many Zero Zero drinkers, offering them a more exciting choice than the current default Zero Zero beer. In Spain, where Tanqueray Zero Zero was first launched, 30% of our volume comes from beer. 7%-10% comes from non-TBA.
I will share you more on how we have achieved this, achieved this in Spain, and also talk you through our strategy in Italy, the home of the aperitivo occasion. The moderation trend is strong in Southern Europe. We identified that 50% of Italian consumers and 40% of Spanish consumers are looking for moderation. We also identified a perception amongst Gen Z consumers that beer was a softer and lighter drink, and more socially acceptable to drink in the aperitivo occasion. Leveraging these insights, we tailored strategies for Spain and Italy, targeting the most attractive segments and occasions where we could win share and drive growth. In Spain, we focused on competing in beer-led occasions, as currently, non-alc beer products account for 13% of the beer market.
We activated our brands around major sports events, such as the World Cup, and have recently partnered with Atlético de Madrid, one of the most popular football clubs in the country, to connect with fans and increase consumption in watching sports occasions, which has historically been beer territory. In Italy, we positioned Tanqueray 0.0 as the perfect choice for the aperitivo occasion, to recruit from aperitif, beer, and wine, and the results speak for themselves. In Spain, Tanqueray Zero Zero is the number one TBA seller on Amazon and the most successful TBA innovation in a decade according to the Nielsen. It accounts for 16% of trademark NSV and has boosted Tanqueray brand by 1.5 points of share since it's launched.
In Italy, Tanqueray 0.0 is the best-selling spirits innovation in the last year and is shaping the 0.0 gin category with 78% market share. It has also helped us consolidate Tanqueray as the number one gin brand in the country, growing by 1.2 points of share since its launch. More impressively, around 80% in both countries are consumers new to the brand and new to gin. We're confident that we can replicate this success in other markets. We are not only growing our brands, but also tapping into new consumption occasions, be it daytime, aperitivo, or any occasion where consumers are seeking an adult, non-alc drink, hence recruiting new consumers. We aim to be a driving force in non-alcohol, setting standards in innovation, in product quality, and category execution that the rest of the industry follows.
Now, we cross the Atlantic to our host market here, where Sally will show you how we are innovating to meet the needs of our consumers for convenience and choice. Sally?
Well, thanks, Cristina, and welcome to the U.S., everyone. I will talk to you about making it simple for more people to share better cocktails more often. Innovation that gets people into new occasions is an incremental growth opportunity in North America. Our brands will be your partner on the journey to discover your inner mixologist. Now, ready-to-serve cocktails make it easy for anyone to offer beautiful, high-quality cocktails at home, and the team and I see a really nice platform here, an attractive space for Diageo to lead. The market potential is massive. Bringing together existing ready-to-serve consumers and spirits cocktail drinkers means a potential pool of around 40 million consumers. That's almost 20% of the total LPA drinker population. Now, importantly, the volume in ready-to-serve is incremental to core spirits, over-indexing with younger, female, and more diverse consumers versus total spirits.
In occasions where there are cocktail intimidation barriers, like hosting a meal or a party for friends, ready-to-serve cocktails deliver bartender-quality serves in an easy and accessible way. Incremental occasions and consumers lead to incremental volume, with 50% of ready-to-serve volume recruited from beer and wine. Now, early data shows that we may have something special here, with the higher price tier of the category growing over 49% in the last year, and we anticipate that trend will continue. So here's how we're delivering on our ambition. Cocktail Collection will be a full line of ready-to-serve cocktails, expanding Diageo's footprint with some of the most popular and complex cocktails in the U.S. today. These outstanding cocktails were developed with bartenders, and they could not be easier to serve at home. Open, pour, serve, and let the hosting accolades roll in.
Bulleit Old Fashioned and Manhattan are in the market today, and early feedback is extremely positive. Now, more on that in a second. Espresso Martini, the Cosmo, and the Negroni will bring Ketel One and Tanqueray into the mix just in time for holiday hosting. Diageo is moving decisively into this promising space. Now, the Bulleit case study is a reason to believe... Launched last year, Bulleit Manhattan and Old Fashioned are fast gaining momentum and engagement with diverse, younger consumers. And importantly, these ready-to-serve products recruit new users to the portfolio. So 75% of Bulleit ready-to-serve drinkers are incremental, and then 18% of those who tried Bulleit ready-to-serve then purchased Bulleit whiskey in the six months after trying ready-to-serve. So this is a great innovation that recruits consumers into new occasions and then inspires them to buy more by building relationships with our brands.
There is a lot to like about this model, and I look forward to sharing more as we write the story of this incremental new platform. Well, we've taken you on a tour around the world, sharing three of our four key strategies. We've given you global examples of how we're driving to get even more growth out of our largest categories. We're using our global footprint, portfolio, and consumer insights to make sure our brands get into new and exciting places and spaces. And we're innovating to stay ahead of preferences, occasions, pours, and serves to ensure that we stay relevant to the consumers of today and tomorrow. Now, before we dive in to our final strategy to raise the bar on execution, let's go into a Q&A session with all the speakers here in New York.
Hello!
Hi, thank you.
Okay.
Hmm.
So remember, this is number two of the Q&A, and once again, we will have one specifically, so Sally will be back up again with Claudia, and we'll have a very specific North America. But if we wanna go ahead and open it up for questions.
Vivien.
Hi, thank you. Vivien Azer, TD Cowen. We heard a lot during the last segment around all the opportunities to premiumize the portfolio and engage a luxury consumer, which certainly sounds promising. But we've also heard the importance of establishing, you know, a more mainstream price point, given economic and consumer volatility. So I was wondering if you could just help us understand kind of the balance of those aspirations, in particular, as they relate to your 6%, 2030 market share target. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Vivien, and I think, you know, what I would say is we do think that the breadth of the portfolio is very important because, when we talk about the premiumization journey, that does look different, sort of across different markets. And so I think, it's probably just helpful to just sort of turn it over and to hear a couple different perspectives from some different markets. I don't know if we start with you, John-
Yeah.
- and then, I don't know, maybe you, Dayalan?
Yeah. So look, by and large, we're seeing lots of premiumization globally. There are some pockets where we're seeing some downtrading, right? China is one of those. But here's where we, to Debra's point, where the power of the portfolio is really important, right? So I think everyone understands the difficulties of the macroeconomic challenges in China right now. The consumer is very cautious. Despite that, I'm feeling quite good about the performance we're gonna post in H1, and that's because we have quite a resilient Baijiu business. You saw that we grew 21% in the last quarter, and we're actually guiding to double-digit growth this quarter. So, even within a dynamic where there is downtrading, I think if you've got brands at the sweet spot, which I think number eight in SGF is.
And then into international spirits portfolio, again, sticking with China, 'cause it's a difficult market, right, at the moment. We are seeing consumers trading down, but we're seeing them maybe, say, in Singleton, instead of buying a 15-year-old, they might be buying a 13 or 12. And within Johnnie Walker, we're seeing Johnnie Walker Black Label doing particularly well. So I do think this is where the breadth of the portfolio is important, and so whilst there's a luxury opportunity in Asia, we're not losing sight of the fact that there is a role for premium core to play as a backbone to that.
Yeah. Dayalan?
Well, I mean, what I'd add is, if I look at Africa, 81% of TBA is beer, and a large part of that is mainstream beer. So if you look at premium beer, which is Guinness, it's growing faster than mainstream beer, but spirits is growing faster than beer. And mainstream spirits is growing faster than premium or beer category end to end. So although it is what we'll call a mainstream spirit brand, it's still premiumizing within TBA in Africa. So I think, you know, it's premiumizing trends, but within our portfolio, it will still be a mainstream spirit brand. So I think there's, there's room for it across the portfolio.
If I may?
Go ahead, yeah, absolutely.
I think in order to protect this, what is happening with the consumer in this downtrading, we don't have to go to mainstream directly. And I think one of the examples that we have, for example, in Latin America, is Johnnie Walker Blonde, which is an innovation that we launched in Latin America, which is a price point between Johnnie Walker Black and Johnnie Walker Red. And the intent of that is protect that downtrading with a, in a way that is accretive to the trade.... So I think we don't have to go back to the preconception around to protect us, we need to go to mainstream, because the power of the portfolio, the portfolio and the trademark that we have.
Yeah, that's, that's a great example, Alvaro, 'cause I think this was one we actually, we had too much stuff, so we had to cut down the presentation. But actually, Blonde was gonna be, I think, one of the great-
Right
... sort of innovations behind in ensuring that we don't take our precious sort of 12-year-old Johnnie Walker Black liquid and feel like we've got to-
Yeah
... you know, price that down, 'cause that, that's the last thing that we wanna do. So you know, what I would say, Vivien, is just sort of, we look at the breadth of our portfolio. Clearly, there is a long-term trend toward premiumization, and we're seeing that play out in different markets. We think it's important, though, to ensure that we've got, you know, enough balance on that price ladder so that we can, we can-
Yeah
... follow the consumers wherever they go, and we don't have to do things like discount our, you know, our aged liquid to try to keep them in the franchise.
Right here.
It's James Edwards Jones from RBC. The Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind, if I understood it right, that started off as a very much a local innovation and then-
Yeah
... exploded. Could you say a little bit about the mechanics of how that happened? What the sort of process was, the development process that made you realize it would work in lots of other geographies? And also-
Yeah
... were there any other brands, or developments that show a similar sort of promise?
Yeah, I think, I'll headline it, and then Cristina, maybe I'll turn it over to you. I think, you know, what's great about that, and I think this is one opportunity where we-
Mm
... you know, we're good, but we could even be better. And that is, you know, certainly we've got one innovation team that absolutely we share insights. But this is one that, if I think about what we could do better, is that we could actually get this out even, even faster. Because this story, really, I think, could have unfolded even, even quicker.
Yeah.
Bertini'd Up is one of the places that we actually absolutely see as a success, but I think there is an opportunity for us to do this quicker. If you want to just talk about innovation and how-
Sure
... some of the things we're doing.
So we have, I believe, as I mentioned earlier, we have an incredible stronghold with innovation. It's one of our core, I suppose, assets. We have a phenomenal team, you'll be able to speak to some of them later, that are truly really grounded around the world, so we can actually do both things. One is to dive into local insights. Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind came out of those local insights in Mexico. And at that time, how that works is you will have an innovation that is geared towards one market in particular, we thought at that time, this is suitable for this market, Mexico. But very quickly, as Alvaro explained earlier, we saw there's more to it than just tamarind, which is a particular flavor native of a particular region. It actually taps into the spicy food.
Spicy foods, guess what? Is being popular, more popular, in more places around the world. So we have a team that is set up to speak to each other and share those learnings. And as Debra said, perhaps in that instance, because we thought about it as a local innovation, we took a bit longer than we could have. Having said that, though, we have mechanisms in place where we work with a model of lead market. We work with a lead market to prove one concept, one idea, test it in that place, and then roll it out, scale it later. Sometimes we choose more than one. I think Johnnie Walker Blonde is one example, where we chose six market tests concurrently, 'cause we felt the opportunity is there, and we want to be sure that it's prepared to scale.
So we will operate in a way that is fit for purpose, for the trademark, for the insight, and for the lead market and rollout plans that we've got for those brands.
I think if I could just add-
Oh, yeah
... one more thing. I mean, one of the things that I have found is really successful in Diageo is the adoption that we have for our, our technology and data tools. And so when it comes to, like, consumer insights, these tools are not just a U.S. kind of a thing. These tools have been adopted so broadly across all of the markets in, in Diageo, and our, and our people are so entrenched in it, that we have the ability to get global insights and global analytics around, like, you know, the, the affinity for spicy foods, as an example-
Yes
... at a global level, to be able to draw these comparisons.
I think, you know, some of the success, as I think about what, some of our more recent things, some of the things that, John, that you presented, you know, the Golden Trésor and all... So that's actually coming out of we've invested in a Shanghai innovation hub. So this is one of those things, as Cristina's talking about, what's around the world. It's not just in our developed markets, but absolutely looking at these insights and what the possibilities are. And so that's something that I think, you know, is really already yielding. You got to see some of those today, great results.
Did-
Good morning. Fintan Ryan here from Goodbody. I have two questions, please, around your strategy for the tequila globalization. So firstly, how should we think about the recruitment mix of consumers in the different regions? I appreciate North America, the other recruitment premiumization came from brown spirits and vodka. But how does that mix change in terms of your thoughts around Asia and Europe? And then secondly, just in terms of the long-term strategy, given it's a category where you've had supply constraints historically, how would you prioritize, like, a 1942-
... shipment going to Asia versus Europe versus North America, and you're thinking about, I guess, category share and allocation of these scarce resources?
Yeah.
Yeah, uh-
Well, first of all, we don't have to worry about deciding whether we send it to one or the other. I think we're in pretty good position from a supply perspective, so that's the first thing I'd say. We're going really big on tequila across the world, and the great thing is we're doing it in a synchronized fashion. So whether you turn up in Changi Airport or Heathrow, or you go to London or Ibiza or the party islands of Greece, on the ski slopes in Japan, you're gonna find 1942 there right now.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm really excited about that. It's the kind of global Diageo at its best. We're quite early in the journey, Fintan, but I, I like the fact that, we're going in 1942-centric in Asia, right? We're going in high, building equity from the top. Yes, we'll make the rest of Don Julio available, but 100% of our brand spend is 1942. We're... I'm very encouraged by the traction that we're getting right now in high-energy, nightclubs, and the source of business anecdotally feels quite, significantly incremental. So early days yet, but I'm excited about this could be a really strong pillar for us, in addition to the Scotch business we have in Asia.
And I think that it, it's also an important aspect to consider, that it will develop differently across different geographies. Hence, the point earlier around how we understand data and the insight that we're getting. So, we chose the example of Southern Europe because it visualizes how the category is being built around different occasions. And Debra talked about our focus on occasions earlier. This is a critical enabler to ensure that we tap into the growth opportunity in the right way for each geography. We have a wide portfolio. It's fantastic. The brands are Don Julio and Casamigos are phenomenal. They have been built in culture in the U.S., and that is known elsewhere. I can tell you that the top bartenders of the world are very knowledgeable about these brands. They were really tapping into the scarcity when scarcity was the case.
It's no longer the case, and they're delighted. I can tell you that they're preparing these cocktails truly in the top bartender, bars around the world, and I'm really excited about the possibility.
I think just building on that point about clarity on consumer occasions, because we traditionally think about the maturity of the category and then the opportunity, and one of the things that we have learned with with tequila brands is the brand transcends the category. You know, and I think that's, that's the beauty of Don Julio and Casamigos, that we don't have to think traditionally, you know, in this way because it's so, so trendy and so hot. But it's more about the power of the two brands that we have, more than thinking about the category per se.
I'll add-
Oh.
Even though... Yeah, even though it started in the U.S., there is still, I think we forget sometimes how young this brand is.
Yeah, yeah.
It has so much headroom from a brand awareness standpoint, just in the U.S. The penetration of tequila in the U.S. is still a third to two-thirds that of vodka and whiskey. Casamigos itself delivered 70% of the growth. In fact, over the last 4 years, it delivered more growth than any other spirit in the U.S.
Not just tequila.
Not just at Di-
Yeah
... Diageo. And so, you know, now we've got full supply, we can innovate, so I think you're gonna see a lot more growth from the U.S. as well.
Very good. Everyone wants to talk about tequila.
Lawrence?
Hi, yeah, Laurence Whyatt at Barclays. I'd like to continue again on tequila, and then actually have another question on China. When you talk about your Scotch portfolio, a lot of the cocktails that are made typically come from Johnnie Walker Red and Johnnie Walker Black, which retail at around the sort of $20-$40 a bottle. Yet in your main tequila brands are a bit of a premium to that, yet most of the growth driver is coming from the cocktail occasions. Given that consumers are a bit more financially constrained at the moment, why are you confident that consumers are happy to pay up for products to go into cocktails, when they, I guess, historically wouldn't in a category like Scotch?
You want to take that?
So we've, as I mentioned earlier, we have really understood the occasions, right? And so there's both cocktails and sipping. In 1942 in particular, that's the way in which it goes. They tend to be launched, and we are really aiming that way, in the high-end places. So I mentioned après-ski in the Alps. You see the Southern Europe locations this summer. Equally, John spoke about luxury in Asia. Those consumers are seeing that as an affordable luxury. There's something that they can absolutely afford. I'm also sure that as the category develops, we will see further development, as we have seen in the U.S. But frankly, we're in the earlier days of that.
I think the other thing is, you know, we're definitely seeing the consumer more, you know, kind of making choices.
Mm.
One of the choices that they're clearly making is to, you know, spend their time as well as their money on that socializing occasion, which I think is slightly different today than it was maybe, you know, a decade ago. I think, we're definitely seeing more of that, desire. When you go out, people want to have a really good time.
Could I just ask one on China, if that's possible?
Yes. Yeah.
When we look at the growth rate of the Chinese business since the anti-corruption campaign, it's typically been double digits. But of course, you mentioned that the luxury consumer is becoming younger.
Mm.
That younger demographic is set to shrink by almost a quarter over the next decade. We're already seeing youth unemployment quadruple over the past decade. There's well-documented issues in the real estate market. When you think forward over the next decade in China, do you think it's reasonable to continue at that same sort of double-digit growth rate?
... So Laurence, here's, here's how I think about it, right? So you've just listed all the negative macros, which is true, about China, but here's what we need to remind ourselves, right? It's the biggest spirits market in the world. It's 3.5 x the size of the US, and international spirits as an entire category is only 3% of that pie. So you got 97% of spirits is huge, it's premiumizing, and we haven't even begun to make inroads into it. Penetration of Scotch in China is only 4%, right? So yes, it would be better if the economy was booming, but we actually don't need the economy booming to go after that 97%. So I'm really excited about the ability to drive penetration, drive trial.
I mentioned to you last night, I'm really encouraged by the fact there's over 30 whiskey distilleries being built in China right now. That is gonna cause a massive acceleration of penetration. And by the way, we're building a beautiful one, as Debra said, opening in December. But I think driving penetration of brown spirits and whiskey in particular in China, I think the journey is only just beginning. So that's why I remain, you know, quite bullish on the medium to long term.
And you know, I think I'll add to this. I think this is where being in the Baijiu business has really helped us understand kind of that China market much more so-
Yeah
... than what
Sure. Yeah.
Um.
Absolutely, that's right, Debra. And I think, you know, by being the only Western company in Baijiu, and Baijiu being so inextricably linked to Chinese culture and food in general, we have tremendous insight. And as I mentioned, I, I'm quite encouraged by how resilient our Baijiu business has proven to be. And by the way, on our Baijiu business, just another stat, we've only 4% share of super-premium Baijiu, right, in China? We've a long way to go within our Baijiu business as well.
Olivier.
Thank you. Olivier Nicolai from Goldman Sachs. A couple of questions for you, Alvaro. Just talking about premiumization and pricing strategy in Latin America for Scotch, effectively. Do you think you took too much pricing in recent years, whether it was on primary Scotch or whether it's on the more premium end of the portfolio, particularly when you compare versus TBA? So you mentioned beer or your other competitors in spirits. And just following up on the de-stocking comments from this morning on the region again, do you have any idea of the mix within that excess inventories, if it's more on the primary Scotch or if it's more on the high end, and should we be worried about potentially an impact on margins?
Yeah. Okay, so let me start with the first one. The answer is no. I don't think we took too much pricing, and let me explain to you why. Because I think we need to think about the Scotch in the context of Diageo and not just in the context of Latin America, yeah? And Latin American business, our Scotch category was the largest one, but was really based on mainstream and standard, you know? And what the work that we have done during the last 3 years has been reshaping that category. Because we have that liquid gold that we need to protect, not just for the year that we are operating, it's for the next 20 years that we are building in this business. And we do...
We understood that we have other brands with our core portfolio that can play that role about making sure that we keep recruiting. That doesn't say that we are not doing that with Scotch, and actually, we have, within the premiumization journey and within the prices that we have been taking, we have been recruiting consumers from out of international spirits. And I think that is the misconception about recruitment, that we think that is just about pricing. And recruitment is about the power for the trademark, the right understanding of the consumer location, and how you are activating the brands. To the second question about the mix of the stock, as I mentioned before, and on the second layer, it's quite difficult to understand what is sitting there, yeah?
My feeling, due to the premiumization journey that we have been taking, that should reflect the portfolio that we have right now. But that is just an anecdotal information, because, as I mentioned before, we don't have that level of visibility of that second layer.
I'd add, you know, I mean, we said in the call on Friday, we will come back to you on Friday, on... Sorry, Friday. We will come back to you at results.
Yeah.
Yeah, with... We don't intend to do this every Friday. We'll come back to you at results with-
With more clear.
... with the more-
Big
... with, you know, more accurate insights on exactly, you know, what we're dealing with in Latin America. I, you know, we just don't want to put something out there now. This was live information. We put it out as we got it. The teams are doing a lot of work to understand exactly what it is, how much it is. We'll come back at results.
Yeah. Because you'll be able to know, because you're gonna see, well, I mean, you're seeing what's being ordered.
Yeah.
We'll be able to get a little more diagnostic, certainly, as we get through-
Yeah
... this high consumption time of year.
Okay. Robert?
Thank you. Robert Ottenstein, Evercore. I wanna dig in a little bit on the ready-to-serve opportunity. I was wondering if you could kind of help us think through how you're positioning those products in the US versus the High Noons, the White Claws, the Cutwaters, for instance. In terms of pricing, placement, route to market, occasion, just trying to get a sense of how you're looking at the landscape.
Yeah, I'll start, and then-
Mm, sure
... Sally, you can add to it. I mean, so I would say these, this High Noon, Cutwater, and some of that really plays at a very different... you know, sort of piece of that convenience occasion than what we're talking about here, which is why we're distinguishing it by calling it sort of ready to serve versus ready to drink, 'cause this really is more about, you know, it is that open pour serve. So, you know, whereas really that High Noon occasion, so it really is thinking about occasions, is the way I would describe it. So, that High Noon occasion, quite frankly, a lot of that is coming out from, you know, the beer and the malternatives, you know, things that are in a can, we'll call it.
So it is single serve, it is in very different places, and kind of what you're doing than what this sort of ready to serve specifically is attacking. That being said, we do think that there is a premiumization journey that's going on, right? If you think back, I mean, gosh, three years ago, when I was sitting in North America, you know, it was all about seltzers, right? And that was, you know, frankly, even cheaper then than even where that category is today. So you're seeing FMBs within beer certainly have a lot more heat than what you're seeing on seltzers. You're seeing then, of course, spirit-based cocktails even more so than FMB. So you really do see this consumer premiumization journey, and that's really where on the ready to serve...
Like, for years, you've had, you know, what is it? Those, those José Cuervo kind of margarita mixes and sort of that type of, like, ready to pour things that have been out there. We've had Captain Morgan, but once again, that's a very different kind of occasion, kind of really kind of based on a party occasion than what we're talking about here. And then, I don't know, Sally, if you want to-
Yeah
... add, too, 'cause I know you've been out in market to see how people are merchandising this and-
Absolutely. I mean, to your point, right now, consumers are trialing these heavily promoted, undifferentiated seltzers-
Yeah
... and we're not going to chase that share. We're going to build our brands, not just borrow our, from our brands. And so what we've done is really focused on that segment actually of convenience, of ready to drink, that is growing. If you look at the numbers, it is the premium, the higher price tier of the segment that's growing, it's growing 49%. And so what we've done is really elevated this new ready to serve market by creating... And by the way, has anyone tasted what you got in your bag last night?
Yeah.
'Cause you got a couple.
Yeah.
You got the espresso martini. You-
Yep
... you might've had too much during dinner. But please try it. So you have a ready to serve-
Yeah
... espresso martini in your gift bag from last night. And, it is, it's spectacular in terms of the liquid. We've done some taste tests here versus homemade, and we can't tell the difference. We've also got Tanqueray, entering with a Negroni. We've got Ketel One with a cosmo, along with the espresso martini. One month in, I had a chance to do a bit of a jet tour across the country, taking a look at, our programs coming to life, and we had beautiful displays of ready to serve that were just very elevated, and really stood out in the market.
Yeah, I mean, look, I, you know, I think at the, you know, at the end of the day for this, when you think about what happened during COVID, people... There really was this inner mixologist thing that happened, and people built out their bars and all of this. Now, as people are kind of coming out of that cycle, you know, we developed the taste for cocktails, but, you know, whether you're going to have, you know, the bitters at home, or I'm going to have the gar- Like, you know, you kind of want it all, but you may not have then all the, the pieces and parts that you need to really be able to bu- you know, to, to have the cocktail.
So I look at this and go, "This is a natural space and occasion that people are going to go to," because you don't have the time, or maybe you don't feel like you have the expertise to make that old-fashioned the way, you know, a really great bartender makes it. That, of course, Bulleit's delivering on that. You know, and now to have Ketel One, always a brand that's known for cocktails, and bartenders love it, and so to have that and the espresso martini, which is such a popular cocktail, we really feel like this is sort of taking it into those convenient cocktail occasions, that really things like the High Noon and seltzers are just playing in a, you know, in a different area.
Just one more thing-
Okay
... to reinforce-
Yeah
... is the incremental consumers that are coming in.
Yeah.
We're getting more multicultural, we're getting females coming into ready to serve. The most interesting part is that when they try it, there's a portion then, then for the first time, buy the spirit-
Yeah
... and buying Bulleit whiskey-
Yeah
... which is, that's critical.
I mean, that's a really good point, too, about building our brands on this. As we look at convenience in total, we keep saying we're going after the premium space, we're going after places that we can recruit into our brands, and really, you know, that's where we want to play. That's where we feel like it's our sweet spot. That's our, you know, competitive advantage and our reason to succeed.
I think, and Debra, if I may-
Yeah
As Sally said, please try them, because the one distinguishing factor is the liquid is spectacular.
It's-
We have a real, real, real, you know, asset in our R&D teams, and they have developed fantastic liquids, and in there lies the key to their success.
Sorry, just-
Yeah
... who's distributing it, and where is it placed ideally in store? So is it with spirits or somewhere else?
No, with spirits. Although, I think, you know, look, this is going to be different in different places.
Yeah
... because, you know, you're seeing more and more in this, in this space, but I think, you know, most... most of the liquor stores are, you know, are actually carving out like a, a- Yeah ... a ready-to-serve. Yeah. You know, sometimes you'll still see it in with the brand, but I think still it's mo- It's different. Yeah. So it is different store to store, which is why getting it on the floor is so critical. Yeah. So that's great to hear. Yeah. I think at this point, we'll move to the next session. Oh, very good. So we have the next session. Sure. We're out of time. We will be back- Come through ... to answer more Q&A. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.
Just have it.
Thanks. So before the Q&A, we covered three of our strategies which will underpin our growth. The fourth strategy is raising the bar on execution, and I want to re-emphasize how important this strategy is going to be for us going forward. This is how we will take our strategy to action. So as I've mentioned before, we will do this in our end-to-end operations by working to drive unprecedented productivity across every consumer touchpoint, from how we understand consumers, how we create demand, and how consumers experience our brands on the shelf and on menus. This is how we will make our scale show up in the marketplace. This strategy applies across the globe to all of our regions, but today, we want to show you how it applies to our largest region, North America, where we already have a fantastic portfolio of strong brands.
This region, our largest region, is 41% larger by value than it was pre-COVID, and we have increased investment in this market consistently over the past several years. But there is still plenty of room to grow, given we still only have 7.5% market share of U.S. TBA. So we want to continue to raise the bar on execution, go from strong to stronger, and so now I invite Sally and Claudia to discuss the U.S. market as an example of how we will continue to raise the bar on exe cution.
Well, thank you, Debra. I think I'll start with the facts that brought me here to the world's leading international spirits company. As you know, the U.S. is one of the largest spirits markets in the world, and we believe Diageo is positioned better than all of our peers. Debra mentioned the growth in recent years, but it's the growth ahead where I see such strong potential and possibilities. Positive demographics, premiumization trends, and consumer preference for spirits over other TBA categories present such a strong tailwind for growth. Diageo has the scale, the breadth of portfolio, and the depth of talent and capabilities to lead this dynamic market. Our international spirits business is twice as big as the nearest competitor.
We have a portfolio of brands that spans consumers, occasions, and categories, and we have the expertise that allows us to meet people where they are, from amateur to aficionado in our categories. This attractive and profitable market is evolving rapidly, with ever-changing consumer preferences, and as Debra said, we've outperformed the market through the last four years. So going forward, this is how we'll go from strong to stronger.
First, we'll win in whiskey. This is the most dynamic category and is fast growing. We are focusing on our goal of winning in whiskey with Crown Royal, Bulleit, and our Scotch portfolio of Johnnie Walker, Buchanan's, and our single malts. We are currently leading the category in market share, but we know there is so much more opportunity out here. Second, we will continue to broaden and expand our leading tequila portfolio.
And then third, we'll innovate to drive recruitment into new occasions. And I'll cover some of these examples showcasing this plan further, and then Claudia will discuss how we'll execute to win smartly and competitively, how we'll leverage data to drive greater agility, greater efficiency, and effectiveness in our media activities, and build on our route to market strength to shape a next-generation operating model. But first, let me introduce you to the jewel in the crown of our whiskey portfolio, Crown Jewel.
Crown Royal, born as a gift for the King and Queen of England in 1939, and still the spirit of generosity 84 years later. Because to us, it's not what you've got, it's what you give. Our bag and our bottle are the most recognizable brand assets in the category, all helping Crown Royal own the throne. The number one whiskey in North America and the number three spirit in the U.S., our portfolio includes award-winning whiskeys across every growing price point, and our ever-growing consumer base spans Crown country.... These strong foundations will help us build and accelerate our brand into the future. In FY 2024, we're launching a new creative platform, heroing our flagship Deluxe variant. Our bold out-of-home and digital will showcase the quality of our liquid, and our four new films will celebrate the distinctive qualities of our product.
Beyond our flagship deluxe variant, we'll drive whiskey desire throughout our entire portfolio. Regal Apple, the king of the night. Crown Peach, the queen of hosting. Not to mention Crown Salted Caramel, and the newest addition to our family, Crown Blackberry. And Crown Royal cans are ready to drink wherever, whenever you like. Our powerful innovation pipeline will grow even stronger, like 30-year-old, our unprecedented, longest aged blend to date. Golden Apple, the most premium flavor experience on the market. Single Malt, first of its kind Canadian single malt whiskey. And of course, we'll continue to cut through in culture by putting generosity at the heart of everything we do. Giving back to the military, having sent over 1 million purple bag care packages to our brave servicemen and women overseas.
As the official whiskey sponsor of the NFL, leveraging this enormous platform to celebrate the hosts who make game day great, and supporting the legends of the rodeo. From its historic origin story to the modern beloved brand it is today, Crown Royal is America's spirit of generosity, and we're confident in taking it to new heights.
Okay, so Crown Royal is our largest whiskey in this strong portfolio, and we must expand Crown's leadership, and we have a plan. We're raising the bar on execution in three ways. Consumers have told us that they don't know enough about the brand, so we're investing in a marketing campaign that showcases what makes Crown Royal distinct. It brings to life the smoothness and versatility of this quality liquid across occasions, and also showcases our iconic purple bag. Now, the first TV ad just aired last Monday. We're also broadening the footprint of this powerful trademark by continuing to innovate to meet the changing needs and preferences of our consumers, just as you saw in the video. And then to ensure excellence in execution, we are implementing a hyper-localized approach to drive growth.
We're using proprietary data and insights to access zip code by zip code to raise the bar of execution at the point of purchase. We're confident that these three actions will help us grow this billion-dollar brand to broaden its appeal to more people and more occasions. Now, moving on to tequila. Again, I know that the team has talked a lot in the past about tequila, and Cristina shared what we're doing to grow tequila globally. And now I'd like to tell you a little bit more about our exciting new initiatives around tequila in the U.S. tequila saw annual growth of just under 20% from 2017 to 2022, and it's projected to be the largest value category within international spirits. And as Cristina mentioned, it's gonna deliver over 60% of incremental growth for core spirits over the next five years.
But again, household penetration still remains lower than other categories. We are the number one tequila player in the U.S., which positions us well for future growth. As the category matures, consumers are exploring and expanding their repertoires. This is leading to growth in the category across a broader range of variants, price points, and new consumption occasions. We'll be at the forefront of driving growth across these opportunities. Our breadth of variants in Don Julio and Casamigos include Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, and Cristalino, and they provide options for consumers and occasions when they want to explore and demonstrate their knowledge. We're also actively expanding our participation across the price ladder, first with DeLeón, and more recently with Astral and 21Seeds, growing our options in super premium tequila to access even more occasions.
We're also innovating in formats such as Astral Ready-to-Serve Margarita, which is launching early next year, and we're playing in more serves and occasions. For example, the 21Seeds spicy jalapeño and cucumber with soda makes an easy-to-prepare skinny margarita, which I can tell you is simply delicious. Now, our mission is clear: more consumers, more occasions, more serves. I have confidence that there is so much more to come on the North America tequila growth story at Diageo. I've just told you how we have innovated in tequila, and now I want to give you a couple more examples how we are expanding at pace to capture growth opportunities, including how we're listening and learning and offering relevant options for multicultural consumers, and how we're expanding into incremental occasions with our large trademarks.
So first, let me start with one of our biggest innovations last year, Buchanan's Pineapple. It was born from an insight we discovered through social listening. Hispanic consumers were mixing Buchanan's, Buchanan's Deluxe with pineapple juice, and they were coining it the Buchanita. Now, building on this, we created a liquid that captured this trend. Buchanan's Pineapple is now the number one core spirits innovation in the last year, and importantly, it has driven Buchanan's trademark share growth. It's driving new recruitment to both the trademark and the category, and in fact, initial consumer data shows that 80% of these consumers are new to buying Buchanan's within the last year, and 50% of these consumers had not purchased Scotch in the past year. So the next example I'll share with you is just hitting shelves now, and this is an extension of our Baileys trending strategy.
It's built around the five delicious C's: chocolate, coffee, ice cream, cake, and of course, cocktails. So we knew that there was an overlap between chocolate consumption and Baileys, with 98% of U.S. consumers liking chocolate. Now, leveraging this insight and proven platform, the team developed and launched Baileys Chocolate to deliver a new option in this indulgent occasion. And we're seeing promising signs of success. This will be Baileys largest innovation launch to date, and it's already gained 13 basis points of share. So we're proud of our ability to identify new opportunities within key occasions and innovate at scale and with speed.
Diageo has 6 of the top 10 core spirits innovations in the last 12 months, and importantly, we keep asking, "What's next?" Now, let me hand it over to Claudia to walk us through how we are raising the bar on execution from media to route to market.
Thank you very much, Sally, and hello, everyone. I'd like to now talk to you about how we leverage our data and technology capabilities to reach consumers with relevant messages at the right time and in the right location, so that they're ultimately much more likely to purchase, consider—to consider purchasing our brands. For that, we bring together multiple pieces of data and AI technology to develop a distinctive and customized media bidding algorithm to reach consumers with. Let me give you an example, and I hope some of you here in New York had an opportunity to see this last evening in the showcase. When analyzing zip code and neighborhood data of our brands, we learned that two of our whiskey brands have very different footprints in the key cities and even zip codes within the same state.
What you can see here on the screen are the consumer heat maps for Crown Royal and Bulleit in the state of Texas. The darker the color, the higher the demand for the brand. You can clearly see how different they are, with very distinct hotspots in the state of Texas. These insights enabled us to pinpoint Crown Royal and Bulleit whiskey consumers in Texas with far greater accuracy, enabling us to make increasingly targeted media decisions. We actioned this across thousands of zip codes in the U.S., personalizing messages to consumers, and we did this simultaneously at massive scale. Without our digital capabilities, we would have had to hire about 730 people to deliver this. But what's more important, this approach is driving strong results.
Targeting our media to the areas where it matters the most led to a 30% increase in effectiveness of our investment, while also raising the bar to get the right brands in the right outlets, always perfectly executed. This has been a priority for Diageo for many, many years. We've pioneered, in fact, many aspects of the U.S. route to market, which has delivered strong results and informed insights as we shape the future of our route to market here. Let me first give you a few examples. It was Diageo who first established dedicated selling divisions with strategic distributor partners, creating a competitive advantage, which has helped us grow this business over the past two decades. It was also Diageo who created the first advanced analytics team in the industry, utilizing digital image recognition software.
This was called Edge, and we've, you will have heard us talk about this in prior investment engagements. This allows us to gain insight into execution in the independent channel and enables targeting the right outlets and pack sizes for our brands based on consumer demographics. We've also learned that specialist selling and activation organizations drive real impact on brand execution and share performance. Back in 2020, when many suppliers pulled back from the on-premise, we leaned in. We invested in specialist resources who partner with bar owners and operators to grow and evolve their business to changing consumer interests. They also provide invaluable consumer insights that strengthen our on-premise programming.
This investment has made a significant difference, with Diageo growing 200 basis points of on-premise share since 2019, and in the accounts covered by our specialist teams, we grew share by 400 basis points. Now, as Debra said, with our business 41% bigger today by value and pre-COVID, and our growth ambition here in the US, we're also clear that now is the time to shape the next chapter of our route to market and operating model in North America. I'm excited to share with you that we're moving forward at pace with this work, which will mark a true step change in our competitive advantage. We've put in place a dedicated resource here in Diageo, and our distributor partners have as well, so that we shape and implement this transformative approach quickly and effectively.
For obvious reasons, for obvious competitive reasons, I will not cover the specifics of the plan, but I can share with you the end results we're working to achieve with this transformation. First, to help us elevate our category leadership with our distributor partners and retailers. Second, to be able to utilize our vast array of data and move insight to action, to invest for growth in key geographies and consumer segments. Third, with this, we expect to deliver unmatched execution and activation in stores, bars, and the off-premise. And finally, and most importantly, to enable greater local agility and insight generation. I'm confident that with this transformation, we can raise the bar on execution and our presence in stores and bars to be fitting of our position as the largest U.S. spirits supplier and leader across the key categories that Sally spoke about earlier.
With that, Sally, I'm going to hand it back to you to close us out.
Okay. Well, in North America, we are fully focused on raising the bar on execution to set us up for continued success in this next chapter of growth. This is a non-negotiable. To summarize, we'll plan to do this by winning in whiskey, which will be led by Crown Royal, broadening our footprint for tequila's future growth, uncovering new opportunities across diverse occasions for our brands, and innovating with excellence in growth occasions, recruiting the next generation of consumers, with particular focus on multicultural consumers and emerging trend spaces. We will be increasingly efficient and effective in our media, as Claudia shared, increasing mental visibility and physical availability. Building on our pioneering U.S. route to market, which will mark a step change in our competitive advantage. So with that, let's open it up for questions. One more?
Yeah, I think we're good.
Oh, you're good?
I understand.
Okay.
You've been so disciplined and held off on your North American questions. So now, the North American Q&A would be great.
Trevor.
Great. Trevor Stirling from Diageo. From Bernstein.
Welcome. Everybody wants to be in Diageo now.
That was 20 years ago.
Do you want to join us, Trevor?
No, I used to be, a long time ago.
Yeah. He did this. He did this.
If I look at North America, you've got 300 basis points of extra A&P ratio compared to FY 2019. It's clearly driven an awful lot of growth, but if I look at the very short term, it appears you're losing share. Casamigos has decelerated dramatically. If you look at the public data, it might even be in decline at the moment. You know, is that gap all down to the deceleration of Casamigos, and what can you do to revive Casamigos? And if you can't revive it, what can you do to fill the gap?
It might be helpful for us to just kind of break down what's going on with the share, and Claudia and I can maybe do this together. So if you look at U.S. share, 60% of it is driven by tequila, Canadian whiskey, and vodka. And there's a few key things that are happening and plans to address it, and that will kind of walk through what is really going on. So first, do you want to start with whiskey?
Yeah. I think if you look at, Crown Royal, as, Sally mentioned, it has been a big growth driver for us, you know, throughout, the last five years. We've recruited new consumers, with flavors, into the category. We've innovated, successfully into new occasions, with brands like Crown Apple, that is hugely popular, with multicultural consumers, in the shot occasion. And what we've seen, you know, through the course of the pandemic, that due to some of the supply, and, you know, glass and material shortages, we had lost.... some facings on shelf and some visibility in store.
So with our focus on route to market, our focus on execution, but also a really exciting innovation pipeline that we have for the second half that Sally mentioned, that include new flavor offerings, which we know will attract new multicultural consumers, but also the innovation in ultra-premium price tiers that will continue to halo onto the entire brand. We know we have a really, really strong plan. We've made progress, Trevor, in the most recent periods. Actually, our declines on Deluxe and Apple have really stabilized. Peach, we're lapping the introduction of some sizes that we introduced last year. Salted Caramel, a limited time offer here for the holidays, we're really excited about, and it's driving share growth for us.
We're confident that Blackberry, in the second half, will continue to take us forward. To link that back to your point on, you know, A&P investment, that is one of the absolute investment priorities. Sally mentioned we have a new campaign that went live last week, and also our hyperlocal approach, really making sure leveraging the data that I shared, we understand the hotspots, we invest in those hotspots. All that is investment priority for us. So I think that's the biggest priority from a whiskey standpoint. If I may, I'll just jump into-
Yeah, I was just-
Maybe-
... gonna jump in with one fact-
Yeah
... that sometimes it's easy to forget that Crown Royal is actually bigger, just that brand is bigger than the entire gin category in the U.S.
Mm-hmm.
A small change makes a big difference, GBP 2.4 billion-
Yeah
... in RSV.
Yeah.
So just wanted to-
Yeah
... add that fact.
And then, Trevor, I'll come to your Casamigos point because, as Sally said, right, that's the second, most important driver for us, certainly of our share performance, you know, over the last few years. First, I would just, you know, a couple of facts, and Sally, you touched on it earlier-
Yeah
... you know, with Casamigos. Casamigos grew 70% CAGR over the last few years. It grew 127 basis points of core spirits. That is bigger than any other core spirits that we have seen. Yet, the brand, and I know our Chief Marketing Officer is in the background, the unaided awareness of Casamigos, compared to leading brands in this category, is small. So we see an opportunity to raise that awareness, and now, as we come out of the supply disruptions, you know, that we've had over the past few years, we actually can make those investments and feel confident that they will, you know, connect with more consumers in more occasions. So how do we do that?
We now have broadened our size offerings, so larger sizes on Casamigos, smaller sizes on Casamigos, which, by the way, you know, in this period of consumer uncertainty, is a really good way to win in the occasions. You know, for larger gatherings, consumers enjoy a larger format because it creates a great value for them. But also, when consumers are making choices in terms of how much money to spend, some of the smaller sizes give us access, you know, to that, to an incremental opportunity as well. For the first time since we've acquired Casamigos, we're now able to innovate. A couple of months ago, we've introduced the first innovation with Cristalino, and the response has been very, very good from the trade.
It gets us back into also the on-premise with an exciting offering. The combination of all of those plans, Trevor, another investment priority for us to, you know, come back to your point on spend, but also gives us confidence that we're gonna win in tequila, and we're gonna take advantage of the headroom that we have.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first holiday season we actually have Casamigos in stock.
In full distribution-
... in all sizes.
In all sizes.
Yeah.
That's correct.
With innovation.
That's correct.
Yeah, with the innovation.
That's correct.
So exciting. I mean, and, you know, I flagged some of these, if you remember, at the end of fiscal 2023, we said Crown, we also so, you know, innovation-
Yeah
... really critical. Innovation for us on, on spirits, that's a second half. So, you know, I think a lot more to come on that. I don't know if you wanna talk about some of the innovation that we can talk about, I guess, the stuff that's-
Sure
... already out there.
Sure. And I'll close out maybe the third piece-
Okay
... of what makes up 60%-
Yeah
... of the share, 'cause that really-
Oh, vodka, right.
... kind of deconstructs what is going on with share in the U.S. The third is vodka. And the good news is, on Ketel One, we are actually growing share. The share losses are coming from Cîroc. And, what we're finding is that, as consumers are expanding their repertoire, they are moving to tequila, to whiskey. And the other thing that's happened this fall is we haven't had, as we have in years past, an innovation, right? A fall innovation. And so the team has been quickly working and, and is launching, Cîroc Limonata, which is very, very cool because it's entering a new day part. It's entering a daytime occasion. So, you know, those are just kind of the three key drivers of the share loss and what we're doing about it. So I hope that helps.
Thank you very much.
... Robert?
Robert Ottenstein, Evercore ISI. And maybe the answer to my question is everything you're doing, right? But the question is, you're clearly adding what appears to be a tremendous amount of complexity into the system, right? With all the line extensions and innovation. So how do, you know, the distributors deal with that? How do the retailers deal with that? How do you make sure that the main kind of, you know, hero brands or the core brands don't lose shelf space, right? The ones that turn the most. And how do you also balance this with the supply chain so that you can keep efficiency with all this complexity that's coming in?
Yeah, let me take part of that, and then I'll turn it to you, Claudia. I mean, the one thing to remember on Crown historically, and as we've launched innovation, like, these aren't flavors the way you think about, like, sort of vodka flavors. These really have... This is another one of those places where occasions matter here. So it really is incremental consumers that are coming in to Crown. Part of the reason the brand is so big and has such a broad consumer base is because these flavors have played in a very different way. So, you know, Crown Deluxe versus the Crown Apple, where Crown Apple is more of the shot occasion, and that Crown Peach has played in... You know, tea is so hot right now, so you think about Crown Peach and, what you're able to mix, you know, Crown Peach with.
And that's why even things like, I remember a couple of years ago when we were short on salted caramel for the holidays, really hit us because it is such a very specific... You know, people look forward to it. You know, I'm not gonna say it's like a pumpkin spice latte or something, but it was definitely a, for the holidays, you know, people look forward to their salted caramel, and it was quite an incremental purchase. So these flavors aren't always, you know, it is really about we look hard at sort of the occasions. Cîroc is one that certainly always has been driven off of innovation, and we're always just very careful about how we manage that. You know, and over time, have also slimmed that, so things come out as well as things go in.
But, I mean, Claudia, you're with the dis-
Yeah
... distributors all the time.
Extending-
Yeah
... extending, you know, Debra, your points into your question around: How do we communicate those, you know, priorities to distributors, and how are we evolving? We have, as I mentioned, you know, earlier, we have dedicated selling divisions in over half of our markets and over half of our business. What does that mean? Dedicated selling divisions are sales representatives that work for our distributor partners, but they only sell Diageo, and in many markets, also Moët Hennessy products. So that, by nature, you know, prioritizes them on, you know, the set of brands, you know, that we represent and that Moët Hennessy represents.
Now, part of what I'm excited about in the route-to-market journey that we're embarking upon, and we've been working with our distributors on this, you know, for the past few months, is to really bring our data and their data together to say: Where do we see the biggest opportunities for the key growth categories locally, down to the zip code level? And that's where we will jointly invest, Robert, in service to create even more capacity, to then unlock the opportunity for growth, but also make sure that, you know, as you say, we raise the bar on execution so that at outlet level, we bring that expertise, and help our retail partners merchandise the category, set it to standards, and ultimately grow business for them.
I'd just add on that, Robert, on the supply side of things, we have built a tremendous amount of capability over the last several years to really get a whole lot more disciplined about, like, one in, one out in some cases. How do we rationalize the SKU portfolio to ensure that, as things are being added in, we are also, at the same time, making sure that things that are not turning quite as fast are being removed? The Supply Agility Program will also help, I mean, because it'll help to bring, you know, supply closer to the consumer. So these are all parts, you know, of the same holistic strategy of being able to grow the business in a very, you know, efficient and effective manner.
Yeah, really, I mean, end to end. Because, you know, the one thing, when you think about COVID and just the amount of disruption that had within our supply chain, and really being able to deliver the, all the great insights we had to a very local level, you know, we kind of have all the pieces and parts now, you know, fully functioning in good shape to really be able to string and do this, and that's exactly what Claudia's focused and working on.
Robert Buse, Robert?
Hi, thanks. So I don't think it's a stretch to say that Diageo stock has rarely outperformed when you guys are losing share in the U.S., so we're all pretty focused on this. Are you guys willing to kind of set expectations for when you think you'll get to share stability in the U.S. market? And then, I don't know if there's any comments on that other 40% of the portfolio, things like Captain Morgan, the rum, you know, other categories that maybe you want to make a comment on, that you think that'll go back to share stability as well.
You can go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can go ahead.
I'll address the second part of your question first, and then, you know, we'll get to the first part of it. I think, look, at the end of the day, it is one consumer base that we're talking about here, you know? As tequila has grown, as an example, tequila has sourced from every other part of TBA. It's not consumers drinking tequila on top of whatever else they were drinking. So our focus is to be able to grow share of total beverage alcohol at the country—at the regional and the country level. Because, you know, there'll always be times when, you know, something is more popular and growing, and something is less popular and growing. Mainstream rum is not hot, right?
The beauty of the Diageo portfolio is that we have the full range of products available to us. Whatever is hot, you know, is where the consumer interest is, we can focus our resources against that part of the portfolio to really grow it. So I wouldn't be that focused on, you know, what's happening to Captain Morgan's share. I think the important question is: What's happening to Diageo's share of total beverage alcohol? And that's where I would keep the focus. In terms of putting a specific timeline on getting back to share growth, you know, these things take a bit of time. I mean, the innovation's coming in the second half. We have to do it the right way. What we don't want to do is to go get non-quality share in the short term.
And so part of our investment strategy, and our innovation strategy is very much about that sustainable share growth. So when you lose innovation for a period of time, and you lose, you know, those end caps and those display opportunities and phasings, it takes time to get it back, and we would rather get it back the right way than, you know, put a timeline against it, chase it, spend a lot of money, and then lose it again.
Yeah, but I would say overall, on a TBA basis, we are seeing more, I would say, share stabilization versus share losses.
Yeah.
That curve is turning. And, you know, clearly, the plans that they outlined for the second half, you know, we are seeing some green shoots.
I think maybe just to also, you know, underscore to your point, it is about sustainable quality, share growth. John made the point, right? In the U.S. as well, our local teams have that as a qualifier, you know, for what they're focused on, and the sustainability piece is really important. What I will also say is, you know, the reported share only covers certain channels. What's also, you know, core to our sell-out culture is that we win in all the channels, whether they're measured or not. The example I used earlier, you know, on-premise, we do get an on-premise read through NABCA data, but we also get on-premise information through our distributors. So the teams that are focused on those channels, they, too, you know, are very much focused on beating the competition where they operate.
Whether it shows up in share or not, we wanna win where the consumer is.
Okay, so many. Heidi?
Hi, I just wanted to follow up on this question because you have really strong brands, really great capabilities, are a leader in digital inside innovation, and all of that. Can you just explain a bit more how you got into this position, where you have been losing market share in US spirits?
Yeah, so we... I mean, we've been gaining market share actually for the past several years.
Yeah, I guess I'm talking about-
Yeah
... you know, the last-
More recent
... whatever, 12 months, 6 months.
Yeah, so last year, we held share of TBA. And I think right now we're tracking minus 20-
20
... I think on. And so, I mean, look, you know, over shorter periods of time, you know, certainly, we've talked about some of the issues with some of the product shortages that we had on things like Crown. Frankly, you know, our tequila portfolio, we haven't always had steady supply. And so these things, as you're going through this, you do lose the ability at retail, in many cases, to be able to do much merchandising or that type of thing. And that is the thing that as we've come back into full supply, really putting our full muscle in all of that. I mean, it wasn't that long ago, I don't know, 18 months ago, that we were still quite short on things because of the glass shortages.
We were quite short of supply on several big brands, and so certainly, that has, has hurt us. The other thing that, Claudia, you, you like to, to point out as we're looking at this next phase of our route to market is, you know, we've- we're now 41% bigger-
Mm
... and we're still roughly the same size and same organization as we were in 20-
As we were in 2015.
Yeah. So that's the excitement of what we're building as we look forward. It's, it's not so much fixing things, but it's more about looking to the future and thinking about what we want this business to be, and really designing the organization with partnership with our distributor partners, and really thinking about that next decade of growth. So it's very exciting. But I would say, look, we look at these as short-term challenges. These are all brands in great brand health. They're big brands, and so we're, you know, we're just excited about the next phase.
At this point, it's time for lunch.
Okay.
This concludes this Q&A session. Be back here at 1:30 P.M., please.
So actually, by popular demand, we're actually adding a little bit more on to the North America Q&A. So, showing our agility here, so if I can just get Claudia and Sally Grimes back, and I think we probably have... What do you think, about 15 minutes-
15
... that we can do if we wanna take a few more questions? 'Cause we kinda had to cut it off there a bit.
Just hold it. Oh, just hold it.
That way.
Yes.
We are-
Technical issues.
First question from Vivien.
Oh, very good. Vivien?
... Where is she? Oh.
She's back.
Thank you. And thank you for the extra time on the U.S., Debra and team. So as I kind of think about the commentary around the stabilization in TBA, certainly that must contemplate the fact that the beer trends in the U.S. are deteriorating. So that's helpful from a TBA perspective, not necessarily from a core spirits perspective. So as I think about the commentary from Friday around a gradual sequential improvement in the U.S. or North America, more broadly, into the first half of fiscal 2024, I'm just curious how you guys are thinking about November and December. Because some of the scanner data outside of spirits showed a material degradation in trend in October, specifically, given the resumption, we think, of student loan repayments.
So, how much of a win do you really need in November and December to show that improvement? Thank you.
Yeah, so I think, I mean, I'll start by just. You know, look, it is a critical time of the year, and we are actually, Vivien, quite encouraged on sentiment for the holidays. So that is exactly what we are planning for. So we, you know, so with that, I would say, we also, you know, certainly are looking at trends, but I think October, you're feeling good about.
Yeah. I mean, I think-
I mean, it's already in the bag.
And, uh-
It's over
Vivien, I would say, you know, it's the consumer sentiment also by occasion. So one of the things, you know, we look at very carefully is the sentiment as it relates to the on-premise. For example, you know, we've been winning consistent share in that channel, and the sentiment towards the on-premise is positive. You know, our monitor would suggest 15% more intent to go out. Now, there's no perfect data, but, you know, we were on the road. We met with a lot of national account on-premise customers, so we can look at bookings, you know, for November and December. And so when you look at private holiday events, it seems to be encouraging, you know, what accounts are telling us in terms of their bookings.
Then, obviously, it's our job to make sure that we have menu placements, you know, we have programs and staff trainings in place. So that's one element. And then I think, Debra, to your point, you know, we are now in the season of the most important entertaining holidays, you know, between, obviously, which Diwali here in New York was the first time a holiday, and it's becoming a big consumption holiday as well. We have Thanksgiving, we have Hanukkah, we have Christmas, we have New Year's, and so we're making sure that we look brilliant at the point of purchase. Look, from a consumer standpoint, I hear what you're saying, you know, student loans, and things have been on people's minds.
But that also means, I think, they're really looking forward to spending time with friends and family, you know, in the coming two months. And so it's all about showing up brilliantly at that point of purchase. Being available as a gift, that's another lever, you know, we're really leaning into. We are an affordable luxury. We make a great gift. We're activating across multiple sizes, because that gives us access to multiple purchase price points.
Yeah, I-
I just-
... I mean, I will add, though, I mean, we would not have reiterated sort of the sequential improvement unless, you know, we felt very good about it, so...
Yeah.
Chris? Microphone, please.
A couple of questions on the US again for me. Chris Pitcher from Redburn Atlantic, sorry. You mentioned your A&P ratio had gone from 15 to 20, but market share hasn't stabilized, so is 20 enough? And then secondly, if we look at the second half performance of last year, actually, Johnnie Walker was quite a big drag, and you've not really talked about Scotch in the US.
Oh.
You've talked about all the other ones, but-
Yeah
... it was a bright point for a bit, and it's gone negative. How's Johnnie Walker doing?
I know.
Yeah, I'll let you start with Johnnie Walker, and then-
Yeah
... I'll take the pitch.
Look, a lot of what happened with Johnnie Walker was what it was lapping, so it was more of an NSV drag than, than a business problem itself. And what it was lapping was the refilling of, you know, shortages in fiscal 2022. So you know, with, with all of the port congestion and-
Yeah
... and how hard it was to get supply in-
Mm-hmm
... the very long lead times, fiscal 2022 was a pretty poor year on a number of our brands. And so, you know, it was the lag of that. Sorry, it was 2021 that was a bad year, 2022 was the refill, 2023 was the lag of the refill. So that was the issue on Johnnie Walker.
But if you want to talk about-
From a share perspective, we're gaining share, significant share, of Scotch. Scotch grows a little bit smaller than whiskey, but our trends, in particular on Johnnie Walker Black, which has been-
Awesome
... you know, the heartbeat of all of our efforts is continuing to see really good momentum. And we expect that, you know, to continue over the holiday season. So from a share perspective, I feel great.
And I would say on the 20% reinvestment rate, I mean, look, we don't really target a specific rate. I mean, the region is a you know, margin accretive for us, and so we do tend to, if we need to spend there, we are inclined to spend, but we do look at every dollar that we spend, every event. We've got Catalyst, which I think we've talked a lot to you guys in the past about some of the tools that we have to measure ROI in our marketing dollars. And actually, you'll when you tour the occasions area this afternoon-...
It's got our marketers from around the world, and, they will absolutely verify for you that they have to look at every event before they get the next dollar. And so, you know, we, we regularly look at that. But if, you know, if we need more money in North America, we, you know, we, we try to get it to them. I, you know, I would say in the past, you know, this has been a place where we have, you know, steadily sort of, you know, improved investment as our portfolio has expanded and as we're seeing, you know, the opportunities and occasions.
Cedric?
Jeremy Fialko, HSBC. So a couple of questions on the two areas you talk about where there was some share loss. So first of all, if you talk about Crown Royal and some of the shelf space losses, what visibility do you have in terms of getting that shelf space back, in terms of some of the resets when those are happening, and kind of like what the retailers have committed to you in terms of actually you getting those facings back, which you, which you lost?
Right.
And then secondly, on the Casamigos Cristalino, again, what sort of, like, distributor commitments have you got from, from those, and what would the sort of incrementality to the brand?
Okay
... in terms of reversing some of the trends that you're seeing at the moment? Just some more detail on both of those points would be very helpful.
Perfect.
Thanks.
Claudia-
Yeah
... you want to take that?
Sure. So I'll start with the latter one on Cristalino. Without getting into specific distributor numbers, what it is providing us is giving us access to different serves within the Casamigos family. So we were actually out and about, and one of the features that the team is really working towards is a martini or also a Negroni serve, which actually the liquid is fantastic, makes a fantastic cocktail. And we just got, you know, some of the commitments from national accounts on-premise over the holidays. I haven't even shared that with you, Debra.
Okay. That's new for all.
Ruth’s Chris is giving us, you know, access to additional features and additional menu placements. So we're really excited about that. And we've seen the success, you know, of Cristalino with Don Julio. And, you know, to this day, still, for Casamigos, it's a fraction. And of our—you know, you can tell the story of just the success of Don Julio 70. So it's the very beginning. It's been in the marketplace for a couple of months, but we're really encouraged by the success that we've seen so far. And as I said earlier, we're now also adding smaller sizes. It is a $60, you know, recommended selling price.
375 is a $30 price point, so we're excited about what that can deliver in terms of incremental occasions for the holidays.
Perfect. And then, the other question was visibility on how you have visibility-
Yeah
... into what's going on.
Yeah, and I think, you know, this is where tools like Trax, and Edge, are really important because, the sales consultants in our distributors are using those tools to basically take photographs, of shelf sets. And, you know, we have now repositories of those shelf sets, over time. So we know where we, you know, have suffered the most, in terms of visibility, and that's where the sales consultants, you know, go back and have conversations, especially also with the new news around the packaging, you know-
Yeah
... which, Sally, you mentioned the new news about our media campaign. And we're gonna regain them back. To give you an exact timeline is, to be honest, really hard because it is individual accounts. To your point, it's national accounts as they reset, but that's the, that's the journey we're on. And as I said, you know, on deluxe and apple, in particular, you know, we've really stabilized our, our trends.
We can prioritize people, you know, you saw the map of Texas that we put up. You know, we prioritize sort of where it matters the most to go back and do what we need to do. So, it's actually very, very cool data.
Olivier.
Thank you. Olivier Nicolai, Goldman Sachs. Just a couple of questions. First of all, on the US, you mentioned, I think TBA share was 7.5%, earlier today. RTD is obviously growing very fast. Now, what's just your ambition in the category? And do you think you could get your fair share in that segment? Could this be dilutive in the meantime, until you get there? That's kind of the long first question.
Yeah.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Secondly, on the midterm guidance, just wanted to understand, under which scenario could you really get to 7% organic sales growth? And then you showed us this morning, I think it was a top three contributor by category. You've mentioned some disposals that you've done, previously as well. Do you think you still have more brands to dispose, which could effectively boost, growth rate of the company? Thank you.
Okay. So, if you can hold, we'll come back to you first on the medium-term guidance session of it as we go through that. And then, you know, TBA, and so, as you think about RTDs within TBA, so, how we measure that and look at that is that is taking it sort of, I'll call it anything that is not in... So not beer that's in a can, right? So if you think about the seltzers, the FMBs, all of that, if you roll all of that together, you know, actually, that universe has stayed, 'cause you really are mostly seeing consumers come, sort of come up that curve. And so within that TBA world, I actually think for one, we're already a player, right?
Because we do have a good size FMB business. We've got a little, you know, pocket, I would say, within seltzer and that kind of agave, Lone River-
Mm-hmm
... I'm saying the wrong word for it.
Branch water.
Branch water.
Branch water.
Thank you. And so that piece, we have a small piece there, and then we have a small piece of the spirit. So actually, when you roll that up, we should be able to get our fair share, and I think that is one of the key things as we're looking at our innovation plans and what we're doing. But there's no reason to not be able to get our key share, you know, our share of that because that's in a broader TBA universe, and we absolutely look at that. And I think we can talk about some of the FMB stuff we're-
That we're launching
... because that. So we do have some things that we're launching on the FMB side.
Yeah.
You want to talk about that side?
Yeah, and it's interesting to think that it was Diageo that kind of launched this with -
With-
... Smirnoff Ice
Yeah
all those years ago. And it's still, it's still doing incredibly well. So the team is launching a Smirnoff Smashed, which is actually delicious. They're also launching a Captain Morgan Sliced. So both... I'm looking at Rodney, did I get that right? Okay. So those are coming out in the second half. So that'll, that'll absolutely continue to-
Yeah
to grow our share.
So in the FMB space, so much wider, of course, distribution and availability on, you know, on that, you know, within RTDs.
Yeah.
Then I can take the question on disposals.
Yes, on disposals.
Yeah. We're always looking, Olivia. I mean, like, you've heard us talk about this over the last several years, but we're very active portfolio managers. And, you know, we are equally active on the acquisition side, but also on the disposal side. Most recently, we finally completed the disposal of Windsor, the whiskey business, in Korea. I mean, John can't stop beaming about that. So yeah, but we're, we're always looking at our portfolio to see if there are parts of the portfolio that just do not fit within our construct right now. So yeah.
Any other questions? Oh, there you go. Brett?
Thanks. Would love to ask a question on RTDs from a different perspective. It would seem to me that they're easier to convert those consumers or occasions into your bottled portfolio than it may have been historically.
Mm.
So how do you go about doing that? And is it... Is that a true assumption?
Yeah, I mean, look, one of the things, and I think, you know, sort of even prior to me is, you know, if Ivan were standing up here, we have always thought that this ultimately would be a very good thing for spirits. Because to your point, especially in a country like the U.S., we, you know, you forget just sort of how big sort of... Even though it's, you know, it isn't growing, but in that mainstream beer, place, where there, there's a lot of occasions there. And so that really, when you think about how, when you turn sort of 21 and you're coming in, to the category, mainstream beer and sort of that, that used to be where people came in.
Now, we're seeing numbers where it's much more of people coming in these kind of things other than beer, and it certainly does, you know, help that come into spirits. And so that's why, ultimately, over the long run, we think this is gonna be very good, and we think about it. And that's why we think about which brands, and we really do try to pinpoint. I keep coming back to this, but occasions are really important for us. On those occasions of which we know we can convert people into our brands, and we see it.
You know, Sally mentioned this this morning on the ready-to-serve, the, you know, our Bulleit Old Fashioned and Manhattan, how that's actually reflecting back on, within a certain amount of time, people are actually coming into the Bulleit franchise that weren't there before and buying the bottle of Bulleit. So, we, you know, that is a good assumption, and we actually do see evidence of that and think that's a very good trend for the long run.
Debra, maybe if I can-
Yeah
... maybe another example is actually, our Ketel One Espresso Martini.
Yeah.
Because you asked about how, you know, how, how do we, how do we bring people in? If you look at how we activate Espresso Martini, we actually activate Espresso Martini, yes, through our ready-to-serve for those moments where you're really busy, and you have a big party, and you don't want to relegate, you know, somebody at the party to make cocktails all night. Buy that Espresso, you know, Martini made with Ketel One. We equally co-display, for example, Ketel One Vodka and Mr. Black in stores. And so for the consumer, you know, who has a party, who wants to, you know, create that moment and create a great cocktail bar, it's available for you as well.
But it's using the same platform of the most popular cocktails, and bringing consumers and telling them about, you know, the fantastic quality that is Ketel One. And if you look at the trends of, you know, Ketel One, in the US, right now, we're, we're gaining not only share of vodka, we're getting to gaining share of spirits overall with Ketel One, which is really encouraging. So it's really a surround sound-
Yeah
... to your point.
Yeah.
It is bringing and recruiting consumers into Ketel One Vodka, which is the ultimate goal. All right, I think we're out of time.
Very good.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was our bonus Q&A.
Okay.
Thank you.
So in the final section of our presentation, we will talk in more detail about the fundamentals that allow us to pair quality growth with robust financial performance. So before I hand it over to Lavanya, I want to talk about the intent behind our updated medium-term guidance.... As shared throughout the first part of my presentation, all of us at Diageo have huge confidence in the attractiveness of our industry and category. We also believe in the solid business we have built over the years, the consistent investment we have made in it, and we have the talent, tools, and capabilities to drive sustainable growth. Moving forward, we expect to deliver organic net sales growth between 5% and 7%. This is ahead of what, what we were growing pre-COVID, and is consistent with our medium-term guidance provided two years ago.
Lavanya will take you through the detailed building blocks, but our confidence in this guidance is fundamentally underpinned by three things. First, our participation in the attractive segment of international spirits, which is growing ahead of TBA, sourcing from beer and wine occasions. Second, our advantaged portfolio and footprint, which enables us to grow ahead of spirits. And third, the investments that we will continue to make to grow share. So given our share and growth ambition, we will continue to invest behind our brands. And I'm proud that we have stayed disciplined with our investments over the past few years, regardless of the operating environment. It's paid off, as we have shown you, and Lavanya will also discuss in more detail. We see no reason to deviate from this successful model.
We firmly believe that maintaining the capability to remain invested in the current economic uncertainty and global market volatility is essential. As we expand our portfolio footprint, reach more consumers, and gain more occasions, this ensures that we have resilient brands in the near, medium, and long term. It keeps us competitive in the market to ensure we can continue to outperform this attractive industry. To be clear, the change in our operating profit guidance is not a change in ambition or intent, but is meant to reflect a realistic and transparent view of the projected macro environment that we expect to be operating in. As inflation moderates and productivity from our supply chain, our Supply Agility Program flows through, we expect operating profit to grow ahead of organic net sales growth. Lavanya will cover this in further detail.
Another important element of our medium-term guidance is how we continue to think strategically about our ambitious ESG agenda, Spirit of Progress. We continually review our approach to ESG to ensure we focus on the issues that are most material to our business and prioritize actions that strengthen our performance, whether delivering efficiencies, strengthening our brands, or driving employee engagement. The world of ESG is changing fast, and the needs of our stakeholders are evolving. We're nearing the halfway point of our Spirit of Progress plan, so I've kicked off a review of what we've learned so far and how we continue to ensure our near-term priorities fully deliver for performance and productivity.
This review will consider our commitments in three areas: those where we will maintain our current programs and commitments, where we will accelerate actions, given changing stakeholder needs, and areas where we will need to focus our efforts to ensure we are prioritizing and pulling forward the actions that deliver growth and efficiency gains. In particular, as we work to decarbonize our value chain, we and our industry bodies continue to advocate to governments to put in place the essential infrastructure and incentives required in both direct operations and supply chains. No company or sector can deliver full decarbonization alone, and we and governments will need to forge new partnerships and a supportive policy environment to deliver net zero.
So as part of this, we will also explore options to rationalize how we measure progress and streamline our external reporting, simplifying disclosures where possible to benefit investors and other stakeholders. We will update you on the results of this review in due course. So with that, I am happy to invite our CFO, Lavanya, to present the financial foundations of our performance, our growth algorithm.
Thank you, Debra. In the next few minutes, I will cover how our growth algorithm supports Diageo's virtuous cycle of sustainable growth. We drive sustainable growth and profitability through volume, price, and mix improvements. Our culture of everyday efficiency helps us deliver productivity, and we return that back into the business through bold reinvestment. This enables us to further accelerate our top-line growth and share gains, and positions us well to achieve our TBA share ambition while driving shareholder value. I will now walk you through a breakdown of our performance in the past six years and why this gives us confidence in our medium-term guidance. So let me start with top-line growth. Since fiscal 2017, we have outperformed our peer group with strong top-line growth. Prior to fiscal 2020, top-line growth was consistently in the mid-single digits.
While fiscal 2020 and the first half of fiscal 2021 were significantly impacted by the pandemic, our business proved resilient. We recovered strongly in fiscal 2021 and 2022, when we delivered two years of double-digit net sales growth, well ahead of pre-COVID levels. In fiscal 2023, we grew top line at 6.5%, at the top end of our medium-term guidance of 5%-7%, as growth normalized in line with our expectations. Top line growth from fiscal 2017 to 2023 has been driven by consistent positive growth in both volume, price, and mix. Diageo's price mix growth, which saw a strong acceleration during the past two years, sits in the upper quartile of our CPG peer group.
Volume growth, on the other hand, has been steady during this time, with a CAGR in the 2%-2.5% range during the pre-pandemic years and during the last 4 years. We have invested significantly in technology and analytic tools to support revenue growth management, and have built deep data sets, which allow us to get the balance right between price, mix, and volume growth. In addition to growing the top line, we've also expanded operating margin, including over the past 2 years, when we faced significant inflation. In fiscal 2022 and 2023, mid- to high single-digit price increases and stepped up productivity savings in fiscal 2023, more than offset the absolute cost inflation impact on our gross margin. Volume growth provides us with margin leverage across the portfolio, and improving mix tends to benefit our margin structure.
Our culture of everyday efficiency has allowed us to deliver an annual run rate of about GBP 500 million in cost savings each year, dating back to fiscal 2017, and we see opportunities to continue to accelerate this productivity. So we have delivered this operating margin expansion while consistently upweighting our A&P investment in brand building to drive long-term, sustained growth of our brands. A&P is crucial to strengthening our brand equity and building resilience of our business for the long term. Our sustained and upweighted marketing investment is also a key differentiator of our performance versus our peer group. In fiscal 2023, we spent $3.7 billion on marketing, nearly a 60% increase from fiscal 2017. Our reinvestment ratio has also increased by nearly 300 basis points over this time period.
You can see on this chart that the investment has been in North America and across Europe and APAC. This targeted A&P investment in our regions is paying off. We have gained considerable market share in all the regions where we have upweighted A&P investment. One key insight that we have is that this A&P investment needs to be sustained over several years on a consistent basis to deliver the right outcomes. We have also spent our A&P more efficiently, growing the impact of our investment by increasing ROI. We've done this through building and utilizing powerful analytical tools and developing our marketing effectiveness capabilities, and by focusing more of our A&P on media. We started to invest in this suite of tools and capabilities back in fiscal 2017. These tools have been continuously enhanced, and the number of markets in which they are utilized continues to grow.
Catalyst is now in most markets. Demand Radar covers around 90% of both our NSV and A&P investment, and Edge 365 covers around 70% of our NSV. They enable us to use data and technology to ensure that we make the best investment choices at a market and at a brand level. One of our tools is a marketing mix model that analyzes how to optimize our allocation and investment across our portfolio of brands. Another tool, Sensor, helps us to make smart decisions on digital media mix for specific campaigns. These tools and capabilities have enabled us to significantly increase the ROI of our A&P spend while increasing the reinvestment rate behind our brands. And as I discussed in the previous slide, this is working. The proof is clearly in the sustained gains we have seen in market share over time.
Our commitment to overhead efficiency has also supported our strong operating profit delivery. Since fiscal 2019, the rate of increase of Diageo's overheads has been the lowest out of our CPG peer group, and puts our overall overhead spend as a percentage of sales in the lowest quartile in the group. Over the past four years, our staff cost grew at half the rate of organic NSV growth, and our indirect costs held broadly in line with top-line growth. Since fiscal 2019, our headcount has only increased by 6%, while our organic net sales are 35% bigger on a constant basis. In these years, we have made investments in critical categories, such as tequila, where we have added roughly 1,500 full-time employees, and in key capabilities, such as digital and luxury.
We have, at the same time, improved the efficiency and effectiveness of our people, supported by the investments that we have made in data and technology. And as you saw in Debra's presentation earlier in the day, our people are more engaged than ever before.... This has delivered a strong contribution to operating margin over time, and with that, supported our ability to invest in the business. Clearly, our profitable growth algorithm underpins our strong past performance, and we believe it will continue to do so in the future. It starts with top-line growth. Going forward, we will, we believe we can deliver organic net sales growth in the range of 5%-7%. As Debra discussed earlier, International Spirits has been growing ahead of TBA, recruiting and gaining share from beer and wine occasions.
Looking ahead, we expect International Spirits to grow at 5% RSV CAGR, ahead of TBA at 4% per year. Our portfolio is advantaged, and the footprint that we have is placed to allow us to grow faster than that. Our growth algorithm also anticipates that we will continue to invest behind our brands to grow share and grow ahead of the category. I will now discuss the building blocks of volume, price, and mix. Let's first cover volume. As I showed earlier, Diageo has grown volume at a 2% CAGR since fiscal 2017, and we expect this to continue. While volume growth may be muted in some parts of the world, with more consumers under pressure, with the breadth of our footprint, we have several opportunities to double down.
One particular attractive opportunity is India, which in fiscal 2023, grew volumes by 5.5%. As I referenced earlier, in the recent 2 years, we have grown price at mid- to high-single digits as inflation peaked. Going forward, we expect price increases to normalize to 1-2 points of growth in line with historic pre-COVID levels. Lastly, premiumization. Debra showed you how in both developed and emerging markets, the premium plus segment of our business continues to outpace the growth of standard and value tiers. We expect the continued trend of premiumization to drive an additional 2-3 percentage points of growth in the medium term. Premiumization comes from consumers drinking better, from category mix and brand mix.
Scotch has grown at an 8% CAGR for the past four years, and in fiscal 2023, Scotch malts grew at 16%, which was double the rate of growth of primary Scotches. Even in the last few months, from the start of this fiscal, in the U.S., super premium plus is driving all of the category growth, growing at 2.5%, while premium and below is declining 2%. In the U.S., this has been a consistent trend except during the GFC, when there were three quarters without premiumization. Through our strong execution and consistent investment in our brands and core capabilities, we believe we can further outperform the market and grow share, enabling us to deliver our top-line guidance of 5%-7%. Now, this growth is enabled by reinvesting productivity savings.
We see the opportunity to accelerate productivity over the coming three years and aim to deliver $2 billion of savings from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2027. This is a significant step up in our commitment. Recall that our historic productivity savings run rate has been about $500 million a year. So we intend to deliver this productivity across COGS, marketing spend, and overheads. COGS has historically been the biggest driver of our savings and will be enhanced through our Supply Agility Program, which I will cover a little later. Marketing and overhead efficiencies are expected to continue to fuel our ability to reinvest in the business. I shared earlier how we optimize marketing efficiency through improved ROI.
We also go after waste in every aspect of marketing spend, from agency spend to being more choiceful in how we use point-of-sale material, reusing it, and gaining efficiencies on media. On overheads, we will continue to deliver productivity, including through the investments that we are making in SAP S/4HANA , which is expected to step change our processes and drive efficiency and savings. We're also delivering cost savings from the work that we do on sustainability. For example, when we improve the energy efficiency of our operations, when we reduce the water usage of our operations, when we remove carton boxes from products, we are delivering COGS savings. With investments like our Supply Agility Program, we're now making a step change to take productivity to an even greater level.
Our investment in the Supply Agility Program aims to increase the resilience of our supply operation while reducing our carbon footprint, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs, as well as increasing cash flow. This five-year program was announced at the end of fiscal 2022, and we plan to invest up to $650 million to strengthen our supply chain network and make it fit for the future. Productivity savings from the Supply Agility Program are expected to step up from fiscal 2025 and accelerate in the following years. In line with our growth algorithm, we deploy the additional productivity to drive sustainable long-term growth of the business. Earlier today, you heard Debra discuss our strategy to raise the bar on execution, and my colleagues have shared with you examples of how we are activating at pace against this....
Sally and Claudia shared with you our plans to shape the next chapter of our route to market and operating model in the U.S. With our distributor partners, we will invest behind this initiative. This is expected to further strengthen the competitive advantage we have in our largest market and provide us with the confidence that we can further accelerate growth. We anticipate upweighting A&P investments in the coming years to drive our business, and we will, as always, take a disciplined and data-based approach to our marketing investment. Our focus on this upweighting will be on brands, categories, and geographies where we expect the best ROI. As you saw through the day today, this will include Guinness, our business in India, our tequila portfolio in North America and around the world, Scotch, of course, North America whiskey, our Western Europe business, Baileys, the Non-Alc portfolio, and our fantastic innovations.
Last night, those who were here in person would have experienced some of the approaches we are taking to drive growth through progressive applications of data and technology. Now on to our long-term investments. We run this company for the long term, like true owners. Overall, maturing stock levels have increased close to 50% since fiscal 2017. Maturing inventory now stands at over $7 billion, and it's the liquid gold which provides us our strongest moat. This increased significantly over the past 3 years, driven by the strong growth of whiskey and the explosive growth of tequila. So while the rate of growth in our maturing stocks will moderate in the coming years, we will continue to invest in across aged liquid categories, including Scotch, U.S. whiskey, and Reposado and Añejo tequilas. We will also continue to invest behind capacity increases and our Supply Agility Program.
We have previously said that we expect capital expenditure in fiscal 2024 to be in the range of $1.3 billion-$1.5 billion. We expect this level of CapEx spend to continue in the coming years before declining again to historic levels as a percentage of net sales from fiscal 2027. That brings us to our capital allocation strategy, where we use a very consistent and disciplined approach. Our first priority on capital allocation is investing in the organic growth of our business. Second, we invest in acquiring strategic brands that strengthen our exposure to fast-growing categories. More on that in a minute. Third, we have a progressive dividend policy with a dividend cover target of between 1.8x-2.2 x. Fourth, where we have excess cash, we return it to shareholders.
We manage all of this within a target leverage ratio of between 2.5x-3 x net debt to EBITDA. We ended our last financial year with a leverage ratio of 2.6 x, towards the lower end of our range. Bold and accretive M&A will continue to be an integral part of our capital allocation strategy. As Debra highlighted this morning, we have actively shaped our portfolio towards more premium brands in faster-growing categories over recent years. Importantly, we have also disposed of $1.6 billion worth of brands that did not fit within our portfolio and mostly played in slow-growing segments. The net impact has materially contributed to the shift of our portfolio towards premium plus price tiers. Coming full circle, our long-term growth algorithm and disciplined approach to capital allocation allows us to create value for you, our shareholders.
Aside from fiscal 2020 and 2021, when the business was impacted by the once-in-a-generation pandemic, our ROIC has increased by 250 basis points since fiscal 2017. We make capital allocation decisions for the long term. Increased investment in maturing stock, CapEx, and acquisitions in fiscal 2023 reduced our ROIC in the year. However, we believe that this will contribute to increasing ROIC over the long term. Now on to dividends and share buybacks. The progressive dividend policy I previously mentioned has delivered consistent year-on-year dividend growth for over 20 years, including in fiscal 2020, when COVID significantly impacted the business.
We expect to remain progressive dividend payers in the medium term, and we have returned GBP 9.3 billion of capital back to shareholders since fiscal 2018, and continue to add to this with the current program to return up to GBP 1 billion further to shareholders by the end of fiscal 2024. $1 billion further by the end of fiscal 2024. Our approach on buybacks will be determined annually in line with our capital allocation strategy, while remaining broadly within our leverage ratio. Our disciplined approach to capital allocation will remain unchanged. Just waiting for the... Before I summarize our medium-term guidance, let me start with our fiscal 2024 outlook, which we put out last Friday....
I am disappointed that we are no longer expecting organic net sales in half one fiscal 2024 to grow faster than half two fiscal 2023, and we are now expecting operating margin to decline versus the previous year. I think I need to read, because this thing is not working. Can you, can I, can you just... Yeah. Thank you very much. Technology troubles. Back to paper. Okay. Let me start again with this chart. Okay? I am disappointed that we are no longer expecting organic net sales in half one fiscal 2024 to grow faster than half two fiscal 2023, and we are now expecting organic operating profits to decline for the half. In half two fiscal 2024, we expect to see gradual improvement in NSV and operating profit growth compared to half one fiscal 2024.
But this does not detract from the confidence we have in our long-term growth algorithm. In the medium term, we expect organic net sales to grow within a range of 5%-7%. As we have mentioned before, our confidence in this guidance is underpinned by our participation in the attractive segment of international spirits, our advantaged portfolio and footprint, which enables us to grow ahead of spirits, and the investments we will continue to make to grow share. With only a 4.7% value share of global TBA, we have significant headroom for continued growth. On to operating profit growth. In the near term, while inflation has moderated, it is persistent. And as I mentioned previously, price contribution to the top line is expected to moderate faster than inflation, back to 1-2 percentage points.
We expect this to be different from the past two years, where we have covered the absolute impact of inflation with pricing. In this environment, we will continue to accelerate productivity savings and benefit from operating leverage, premiumization, and revenue growth management. We expect organic operating profit to grow broadly in line with the top line, as we choose to continue to step up A&P investments to support our brands. As I covered earlier, we generate strong returns on these investments. We have the tools and the capabilities to continue to invest with confidence, and as we have demonstrated in the last three years, our investments are translating to share growth. Over time, we expect operating margin growth to increase as inflation abates and the benefits of the Supply Agility Program flow through. So in closing, here are the key takeaways. We have delivered consistent, high quality, strong performance.
We are committed to doing business the right way. I'm really excited about Diageo's future, because TBA is an attractive industry, and within that, spirits are an even more attractive segment. We have an advantage portfolio of fantastic brands. We have an unrivaled geographic footprint. With only a 4.7% share of TBA, we have a long runway for growth. And finally, with our growth algorithm and our capital allocation strategy, we are confident in our ability to deliver long-term, sustainable shareholder value. So thank you very much, and now let's open the floor to Q&A. Debra? Thank you.
Very good. You got within the last 2 slides.
I know.
Okay.
Robin. Rob.
Great. Thank you very much. These have been terrific presentations. Just wanna kind of circle back to some of the discussion we had in the beginning and tie it together here a little bit. We've been getting a lot of questions from investors on this, you know, given the fact that cost to capital is elevated everywhere in the world, pretty much, the macro issues are pressing and increasing, you know, globally. And it's kind of hard—I mean, we don't know your distributor or route to market in every single country in the world, obviously, but it's kind of hard to believe, or put it the other way, we would like to have...
How do we have confidence that you don't have, you know, significant inventory in the supply chain hidden out of view in, you know, other important markets around the world?
Yeah, I can take that.
I was gonna say, and then, look, I mean, if it's helpful at all, maybe we just circle around to the presidents so that they can talk a little bit about this. That might be... So I don't know if you want-
Actually, that may be the best way to do it. I mean, like, look, I'll just kick off with-
Yeah
... like, North America. I mean, it's a three-tier structure. We have full visibility to what we sell to our distributors. We have full visibility to the depletions that they have, the big distributors, the depletions by account. And we have this on a, on a monthly basis in terms of the depletion data, real-time data on distributor inventory levels, and we have been very explicit in sharing that with you all as well. So it's, it's a fundamentally different market structure in North America.
Yeah.
In Europe,
I was gonna say, and I would also add, in North America, of course, tools like Edge and some of this. Remember, this covers 300,000 outlets. We've got a dedicated division within the distributor that you know are out there in outlets as well. So, hard to hide inventory in North America, you know, even below the distributor level. And then, I don't know, John, do you-
Yeah.
Do you just wanna talk a little bit about APAC?
Sure. Is my mic... Yeah. Yeah, so if you just break down APAC, let's take the mature markets, Australia, Korea, Japan, they've all got very established retailers, so we've got very good EPOS data, point of sale data, so feeling very good about that. If you go into my biggest market, Greater China, Baijiu business, we work with exclusive distributors, so they only carry our stocks. We've got excellent visibility on that, and by the way, you don't grow 21% in the last quarter unless you're in a good stock position. Then you move into Southeast Asia, which does have some similarities to Latin America. But I'm very confident in how we finished the fiscal, and we've got good visibility, which we also check through third party as well, through those markets.
And then in India, just very briefly, 50% of our distribution is with the government-owned distributors. Again, excellent visibility. So on balance, I mean, it varies by region, but feeling that we've got, you know, I'm feeling good about where we are right now.
India is fundamentally different for this business than any other CPG business. The total number of outlets in India-
Oh, right
... is less than the total number of outlets in Greater London. Okay, so the visibility is fundamentally different.
Dayalan, you wanna go do Africa, maybe?
Yeah. So if I look at the African business, 65% of our portfolio is beer, and if you think about the beer businesses, average 30-day shelf life, so the beer business has a low shelf life. But also, majority of the portfolio is in what we call RGBs, it's returnable glass bottles. So you've got to ship out, you've got to wait until it's consumed, bottles come back, then you reproduce and ship out again. So that part of the portfolio is very, very well managed, so you know exactly where the stock is. Our biggest spirit market is South Africa, and if you look at the South African business, it is a big, formalized trade channel, where you've got big retailers, and it's day 1, day 3 shipping, so we know exactly what stock is in the trade. So from an Africa perspective, I feel comfortable.
We know exactly, and we've got our hands around the inventory.
Maybe I finish with Europe.
Yeah.
Yeah. So again, you know, majority of the Europe business is big, modern retailers, you know, the Tesco, Carrefour kind of thing. We do have some wholesalers in Europe, and actually, we look at their orders on an everyday basis. And that's been the practice in Europe for a very, very long time. So it is a very well-controlled channel. So I think we've pretty much gone round the world.
Very good. Laurence?
Hiya. Laurence of Barclays.
Yeah.
You've talked about taking brands global, particularly tequila, but I guess Guinness is one of the brands that actually has a relatively few countries that it's sold in. UK, Ireland, Africa, I mean, it's in other places as well. But obviously, beer has massive markets elsewhere. You've got Brazil, Mexico.
Mm-hmm.
much of Southeast Asia, where some of your competitors have big positions. Is there potential to take Guinness to more places?
Yeah, I mean, so actually, Guinness is actually sold, I want to say 130 countries-
countries
... that Guinness is available. I'm looking at
John.
Yeah
... John, and the beer-
Right up there.
the beer board.
Yeah.
The deal is, though, we actually operate in a lot of countries through other parties, so we are not holding... It's actually one of the beautiful pieces of our Guinness business, is the fact we really run it in a very asset-light and efficient model. So, you know, we're not having to-- We've got quite a different model than sort of the beer companies, of which, you know, you know, you're building big breweries, and you're having to invest in a lot of big infrastructure to make that work. And in fact, you would've just seen, you know, some divestitures of assets that we did in Africa, as an example.
You know, so we take a look at these to say, "If there's somebody else who can do it better than us, we've got models for that." So actually, we do have Guinness out there. I will say, we are seeing opportunities, though, yet, for Guinness. John, you've got one in you know, in APAC that you're looking at. So we are looking at Guinness as well. And I think the exciting thing, as I am looking at, like, 0.0, I think we're only in maybe, is it five countries right now? I think so. You know, and quite honestly, that just so delivers versus kind of core Guinness. We you know, so we're looking at that, but we do actually operate in many more countries than what it would at first appear.
But it's just going through, in many cases, some of our beer competitors, actually.
Could I ask another one about guidance? Is that, is that okay?
Yes. Yeah.
So in terms of you've got this sort of medium-term guidance with limited margin expansion over the next, well, over the medium term. Going into next year, we're sort of assuming that some of the issues you've had in LAC, you're gonna start to lap, and so potentially, some of the operational leverage that you'll lose, you should get back next year. And some of your competitors in tequila have talked about the benefits of the agave price. Presumably, you would be getting some of those as well. Some of your competitors have quantified that as well. As well as all of the COGS deflation that's coming into the market right now, and again, well documented by some of your, your peers.
With that sort of environment, it seems like a huge amount of MP to put back into the business to be able to get a flat margin. Why are you just not being very conservative here?
Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's a mixed bag. There is definitely. We do recognize that we and we do expect that agave prices will continue to come down over time. You know, having said that, look, we have more of our portfolio is in aged liquid, so it's just gonna take us a little longer for that to show up in the PNL, right? In terms of inflation, just a couple of things that I do want to call out. Look, the world's a complex place. There is. We're definitely seeing some moderation in inflation, but then there are some key, you know, commodities which are more relevant for us than they perhaps are for others, where we are continuing to see inflation persist.
And so, I mean, I kind of look at like UK gas, and we've looked at, we have like... This is publicly available data, right? Looking at forwards, you know, data for 2025, 2024 and 2025. 2025 is like a dollar thirty, a pound 1.32 per ton, versus today's price of 1.15x. So the forwards still indicate you know, continued inflation. Aluminium is another place. You know, today, aluminium's at around about 2,500 or so per ton. Next year, forecast to go to 2,650. This is where the forwards are. US gas, again, continues to be inflationary, $3.23 per MMBtu, now going up to 3.7x next year. US resins is the other place where we are continuing to see inflation.
So there are definitely pockets where we are continuing to see inflation persist. It's coming down in some places, but continuing to persist in other places. So I'd just take a more balanced view of, you know, what's happening to inflation in total, here across the next—at least as far as we can see, right? The next two years of forwards, it is going to be still, you know, inflationary in, in, in quite a few pockets.
I do think, though, that's you know, if I could just reiterate again, it's not a change in ambition. We wanna grow, and we also wanna expand margins. So clearly, if inflation is better than what we're predicting, that you know, that is, that's what we're looking to do. So it's not a change of, you know, we're gonna spin this and not-
No matter what.
No matter what!
Yeah.
You know, like, and it, it is certainly not that. And we're also, you know, we aren't gonna take some kind of big holiday from it either. That's not what we're saying. So, that's why I think the intent is important here. You know, but it really is, as we're looking at it, we do wanna make sure that what we're doing is protecting the long-term growth, and not making short-term decisions to make cuts as this, you know, inflation volatility flows through. Because we... You know, when you think about how we've gotten there through these, you know, high single-digit pricing actions, this is not the environment you're gonna be able to get that through, you know, in the short run. So that, hopefully that helps clarify.
Thank you very much.
Simon? Thank you, Laurence.
Hi, it's Simon Hales from Citi again. Can I just come back to the capital allocation policy? Lavanya, you talked about sticking with the 2.5x-3 x, you know, sort of leverage range. I think, you know, after last Friday's sort of warning, I think we're probably looking to finish the year probably at the upper end of that range, with the $1 billion buyback, you know, sort of continuing to be executed. I mean, how comfortable are you to be at that upper end of that range going forward? How do we think about future sort of buybacks into 2025 and beyond? Are you happy to stay up there, or would you prefer to see the ratio head back towards the lower end of that guidance range before you think about further cash returns?
We have a very strong balance sheet. You know, we have excellent credit rating. We're able to access debt at very reasonable rates compared to the market environment that we're in. Our intent is to stay within the range. We ended last year at the lower end of the range, right? A lot of this also depends on, you know, what are the opportunities. Our capital allocation is actually incredibly clear, right? We invest in the business. We've given pretty good guidance of what we intend to invest in the business on both CapEx and maturing stock. On M&A, that's the place where it really differs year to year.
If there is a great opportunity available, as I said in my presentation, we will be bold about making these M&A decisions. Equally, as you know, to a question that came up earlier, we're active portfolio managers, and we will look at disposals as well, and there's a continuous list of those that we are also always looking at. We will pay dividends, and, you know, we've been a progressive dividend payer, and we intend to be, to continue there. And then share buybacks, I think we'll make that decision each year based on what's happening with the rest of the, with the capital allocation, you know, choices, requirements that we have. Fintan?
Thank you. Fintan Ryan here from Goodbody.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe just to follow on from Laurence's question earlier. Given that you're saying that you're still seeing aggregate inflation into next year, we've seen significant pricing being taken by yourselves and the overall TBA industry over the last 2 years -3 years, but you're saying pricing midterm is going to just be 1%-2%? If the inflation's still running ahead of that, why are you, say, pricing below the inflationary basket? And if anything, could this mean that your guidance is conservative, should the overall inflationary backdrop stay quite, persistent.
So I think, you know, there's a number of things that we have to help us offset that type of inflation. So remember also the productivity agenda as well, which absolutely helps us, and particularly on a marginal basis, absolutely helps us. And so the goal absolutely is still to be, on an absolute basis, to be able to offset that inflation. It's just a matter of offsetting that inflation and doing the reinvestments that, you know, that we need to make. So that's, you know, that's where it sort of comes in, is it's to think that you're gonna be able to price above that inflation to be able to drive, you know, additional. And we have some great productivity programs coming through, but some of these bigger programs take time to get the full benefits of those.
But there's a number of pieces in there. But absolutely, we would still look to, through pricing, productivity. We also get leverage on, you know, volume growth and that type of thing to make sure that we can do that.
Cédric Lecasble, Stifel. I have follow-ups on the midterm, what's midterm and what's long-term? Actually, you gave some sense of where CapEx would go, you gave some sense of productivity programs kicking in and accelerating. So you have a view that maybe two, three years from now, you'll have some positives coming in and helping profitability. So my first question is on A&P. You raised A&P everywhere over the last years, but the A&P investments in relation to sales is quite different from a region to another. So how should we think about that? How should we model it? Do you think North America is a benchmark for the other regions in five, 10 years, or do you think there are some specific reasons to believe that one region deserves less A&P than North America?
So last, the second question, sorry for this long intro, is about, so the kind of midterm guidance, should we understand that as a 25-27, and that long term comes in 27-28 because of all you explained before? Thank you.
Yeah. So I think, I think we've said before, I'll take the A&P and then, you can take kind of a medium-term, long-term question. So, you know, on A&P, we, we don't target a specific rate, and in some cases, if you think about sort of alcohol around the world, like, we do have certain markets that are dark markets, as an example, where you can't do as much, so it's not necessarily like for like. This is what I tell the region presidents. All the region presidents are looking now to see, "Is she gonna give me money?" But, you know, in all seriousness, there is real differences, and we do take a very rigorous approach on looking at the return for that.
So, you know, I wouldn't say from a model standpoint, you know, taking a 20% and sort of straight-lining it, you know, may not sort of be the right way to look at it. Trying to think what I would suggest for you on a model. I don't know. We'd have to follow up. Somebody has to follow up with you on that, I think, on what we would suggest you model in, but-
Look, I mean, and it's also not at a regional level. I mean, it is market by market, right? Because the opportunities with the consumer is definitely market by market. And a lot of it is going to depend on where the consumer is at in different markets at different points in time. I mean, during COVID, I mean, there were certain markets where the consumer wasn't going out, there wasn't. I mean, there was just no interest from the consumer. And so we pulled back A&P investment in those places, and then where the consumer was, you know, much more active, we invested more in those places. So some of this is also gonna depend on where the consumer sentiment is in different markets at different points in time.
I think you did, you did call out... I think we did call out a couple places that we were clearly gonna invest in, in Lavanya's piece on Western Europe, so that was actually a region that we did call out-
Yes.
Um-
So-
Trying to be helpful from a script standpoint.
Medium-term guidance-
Medium-term
... and the timing within that. I mean, look, it's in some ways, it's hard to put a date around it, and I do mean to be helpful, right? I'm not trying to be, you know, unhelpful here. But, you know, as Debra said, if inflation comes down faster, you know, we'll get to the long term sooner, here, right? Because the part that's within our control and which was in my presentation, is when do we expect the savings from the Supply Agility Program to come through? And on that, we know that, you know, it's we're going to start seeing more effect from fiscal 2025, and it really accelerates from fiscal 2027 onwards, because that's within our control. We're executing this. We know we will get this done.
But on the macro perspective, from an inflation perspective, I think that's a bit of the unknown. And so, you know, I just don't think it makes sense for me to be committing to a date when that will happen. Sarah?
Sarah Simon from Morgan Stanley. Can we just stay on the medium term? You obviously reiterated your guidance for 5%-7% top line and margin improvement at the full year, and then kind of implicitly at the AGM trading statement. So I'm just wondering, what's changed in the meantime? Is it that you think that to achieve the 5%-7%, you have to spend more on marketing, or is it that the Supply Agility Program is yielding savings, which are more back-end weighted? Because obviously, we get the short-term stuff, but the midterm, I don't think I really understand why you're more cautious about the ability to drive margin. Because inflation has been an issue for ages. It was there-
... the full year, and it was there at the AGM. So that it, it seems to me it can't be that. Thanks.
Yeah, so I think, so look, and unfortunately, the thing in Latin America sort of has muddled our message here, so I do get the issue. So clearly, in the near term, and the change, and the Friday announcement was around sort of what is happening in Latin America, and so that is a very distinct issue, sort of in and of itself. So, so how we're thinking about and what's hurting our margins in this sort of near run is really about that and not about sort of how we're thinking about medium term. So hopefully that clarifies some of this. Look, I think the medium-term guidance that we, you know, reiterated, as I said, there is not a change in sort of ambition of wanting to get there.
I think as we have really started to look in detail at what we needed to do to get to the 5%-7% , and really, I mean, you know, the goal is to get to the top end of that. As you get to the top end of 5 5%-7% , the margin flows through. So, you know, as we started to look at what that spending was gonna be and the consistency of the spend, that was very important in order to really look at 5%-7% . And so then you start to take a look at the macro and some of the pieces on inflation, of which that has persisted, and there's been things. You know, as example, I mean, the energy example is probably the best one.
You know, October seventh changed things in Europe from some of the energy things that we were reading to the-- you know, so there's just a lot of volatility out there, on, on sort of some of the things that we're, that we're reading through. So I would say, you know, we now have much more foresight into what, where we want to spend to, to be able to drive the 5%-7% , and then you've got the macro uncertainty. As Lavanya said, we know what we can do on, on productivity, and so this is just where the timing and phasing and lining that up, really made us go back to, to reassess sort of that operating profit commitment, and to make this determination of kind of the medium term to long term. I don't know if it-
No,
If I explained that well or-
Yeah
... whether you want to...
John?
Very good.
Thanks. You mentioned in the growth formula, you know, the 1%-2% price is kind of back to what the business used to do.
Yeah.
Curious what's happened to the elasticity. I mean, in some consumer-oriented industries, people have a really good bead on the elasticity and how it's changed, and you just went through a period where you were pricing at a very different level, and I wonder, given what we're seeing about inflation, you know, how much is the elasticity kind of informing the fact that we want to get the price increases back down, maybe even below inflation?
Well, I think, you know, look, one thing to remember during sort of the COVID super cycle and sort of all of that, it really, the volumes have remained really steady, really from a TBA standpoint to the industry, and then when you get to our volumes, it's been pretty steady. It really has been in this price mix as people really are mixing up. But when consumers are under pressure, you know, this is really when it's not just our industry, but the basket that matters. And so what we see are sort of people making kind of smart shopping choices, and this is where to think you're gonna be able to push through high single-digit pricing is just really not realistic. So, you know, that's kind of the pricing environment.
Of course, we always, we're always looking at our big brands and where we have leadership and where we have, you know, really precious liquid. We are always doing some bit of looking at pricing. You know, we're not just pricing to cover inflation. Like, we think about pricing more strategically on where we want brands on the price ladder and, and, you know, as such. So it really is a consumer-back look, and so that's what informs sort of this, this thinking of, we're gonna go back more to a nor-- you know, this is part of the normalizing of, I would say, the industry, and that 1%-2% is a pretty good assumption.
I mean, we have excellent data. That's the one thing that we have built over the last, you know, several years, going back to, like, 2017, when we started to invest in revenue growth management tools and capabilities. And so I talked a little bit about these data sets that we have, and, and the thing about this is that the more data you collect, the more, the better the whole data set gets, because it, you know, you're, you're able to make better, you know, you, you get to better insights through that. So that's one thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is that in this business, especially on the aged liquids part of the business, it's critically important for us to get the mix between volume, price, and mix right, okay?
Because we're disgorging barrels to fill more, to fill them in, right? And so if you go through a period of no volume growth, you know, you just the model just doesn't work, right? And so we take special care on this business to make sure that we have the right balance between volume growth, between, you know, price and mix. And it all needs to come together because, again, you know, somebody has put in liquid for us to take out 12 years ago , 15 years ago, and they didn't know about the pandemic, they didn't know about the super cycle, and they don't know if a recession was- will be on the cards here either. And so we've got to...
We have to manage this in a very different way than just, you know, categories that do not have this aged, you know, phenomena. One last question, maybe. Celine?
... No, excuse me.
Oh, that's fine. Thanks. Yeah, Celine.
Yeah, Celine Pannuti from J.P. Morgan. Yeah, in fact, it was a follow-up on that equation. So, you said that 2%-3% is your mix, and I think if the math probably was that, if I look at the last seven years, was as probably around 2%-3%. Now, you presented that, I presume a lot of that mix benefit came from North America, where we've seen how premium and super premium did develop quite well for you in the portfolio over the past years. So I just want to understand why there would be as much mix benefit if I think it comes from emerging market, that could be a bit of a headwind, or you were mentioning down trading in Asia, in Latin America.
Just try to understand the visibility that you have on that, mix driver.
Actually, mix has been a contribution across all regions. And North America has not actually been the highest driver of mix benefit for us. There has been a mixed benefit that we've gotten in North America, with primarily the shift, the category shift. So the shift into tequila has given us a mixed benefit in North America. But equally, I mean, like, if I look at Europe last year, you know, price mix in Europe was 11 points. You know, and again, a lot of this was coming from premiumization and consumers trading up within Europe.
Yeah.
Of course-
Remember, in Europe, actually, our business is actually quite standard. So it's not... If you think about Europe looking like the US, it actually doesn't. It's quite a standard price portfolio. So that, actually, Europe's had quite a bit of a mix-up, but it's at a sort of a different place than even sort of where the US is.
APAC has had significant mix benefit as well.
Yeah.
India has had huge mix benefit. You know, Hina talked about it in her, in her section. I mean, with Scotch has been growing at, like, 30+% versus the lower segments, which are declining 2%. So we've actually seen that premiumization is a global phenomenon. Dayalan talked about it a little while ago, about how people are trading up from, you know, from mainstream beer to premium beer, to mainstream spirits, to premium spirits. We're seeing this across the board.
Good. All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
I think I have one more. Okay, so this ends the webcast. Thank you for joining us. And I think with that?