Nigerian Breweries Plc, Nigeria’s foremost brewing company, maintains its leadership positioning as Nigeria’s brewing giant, retaining its number one position in the Lager and Malt categories and number two only in stout.
The Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Hans Essaadi, disclosed this while delivering his remarks at the 2024 Pre-Annual General Meeting media briefing held in Lagos on Thursday, April 3, 2025.
Essaadi further stressed that the company, as the foremost brewer, consolidated its strong industry leadership beyond beer with the recent acquisition of Distel Wines and Spirits Nigeria. This enables the company to provide its teeming consumers with new product offerings and thereby attain the status of a total beverage company with brand offerings for all consumers.
He noted that the company’s strong financial performance in the 2024 financial year was driven mainly by its strong brand innovation, route to market, and distribution strategy.
“Against all odds, the company was resilient with several cost-effective and innovative measures, rising above the challenges and delivering a historic N1.1 trillion group revenue, an outstanding 81% year-on-year growth. However, due to high inflation and the impact of the devaluation of the naira on our FX-denominated payables, the Cost of Goods Sold rose by 98%, we had a 34% increase in the Net Finance Costs, which weighed heavily on the bottom line pushing up our Net Loss by 36%”, said Essaadi.
Essaadi stated that the company has built a reputation over the years for delivering high-quality products that meet the yearnings of our teeming customers. He assured the company would maintain its dominant presence in Nigeria, with seven operational breweries, 1 melting plant, 21 depots, and 12 sales regions nationwide.
“In line with our strong company purpose and values-based culture, we would continue to brew the joy of true togetherness to inspire a better world by our values of passion for consumers and customers, courage to dream and pioneer and care for people and the planet”, he added.
He explained that the company has thus far demonstrated resilience in managing its operations despite the challenging operating environment, noting that the business is anchored on its resilience powered by its ‘Evergreen’ strategy.
He declared that the company would continue to pioneer innovations in the different categories of beer and wine segment of the brewery industry to drive incremental growth. He mentioned that in the financial year 2024, the company thrilled the market with the repositioning of some of its products like the launch of the Heineken lager 45cl bottle, the introduction of a drought offering for Legend Extra Stout, which is the first time a stout brand is served in drought in Nigeria and the relaunch of our iconic Star lager brand among other products.
