Rebecca Hubbard
Posted: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 2:46 pm

Carlsberg's outlook for 2010 has improved as the result of a 30% increase in Q2 pre-tax profits as well as a more positive rouble exchange rate.

For the year to 30 June, pre-tax profits were £435m, versus £334m for the previous year. Operating profit rose to £469m from £403m for the same period.

The brewing company have claimed an improving market share trend in Northern & Western Europe after a flat 2009 following higher marketing spend amongst reasons for the increase. Also attributed were successful product launches and a marginal increase in beer volumes of 1% in the same region.

Carlsberg have said however that its key Russian beer market in fact declined in the first half of 2010 by 9%, after Moscow, in January, in a bid to cut alcoholism, tripled beer excise duty.

The group had expected an improving Russian economy with a “slightly better” consumer sentiment. This improvement was shown after a forecast of low double-digit decline was trumped by a new forecast of a high single-digit percentage decline for 2010.

Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen, CEO, said that despite challenging consumer dynamics, the group's performance for the first six months was strong. “We achieved higher margins in all three regions for the first six months showing that we are clearly on-track to meet our medium-term margin targets,” he said.