Anheuser-Busch has lost a staggering $15.7 BILLION in value since the Bud Light controversy began.
Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has seen its market value plunge $15.7 billion since the disastrous campaign with transgender-influenced Dylan Mulvaney.
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Since April 1, the company has been consistently dropping down the rankings, with experts saying it ‘just keeps getting a little worse each week’.
But their competitors have added $3.2 billion in market value to their brands in the same time.
Molson Coors, which owns Coors Lite, has seen an increase of $2.2 billion market value, around 20 percent, while Heineken has a spike of $1 billion – an increase of 1.7 percent.
Sales of Bud Light are down more than 23 percent as of the week ending May 6, according to JPMorgan beverage analyst Jared Dinges.
Since April 1, when Mulvaney posted the ad with Bud Light, the company has been consistently dropping down the rankings, with experts saying it ‘just keeps getting a little worse each week’
He said the bank expects a 12 to 13 percent volume decline over the course of a year in the US.
‘We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future,’ the analysts said on Tuesday.
He added: ‘Shares have underperformed EU Beer peers by 15% since the start of April.
‘We believe this is due to US uncertainty, as investor focus has shifted squarely to the potential impact from the Bud Light controversy.’
The expected decline in earnings, before interest and taxes, will follow a 12 percent drop in volume and a 10 percent decline in sales.
In the company’s latest attempts to deal with the backlash, Anheuser Busch has told wholesalers it will buy back unsold cases of Bud Light that are past their expiration date.
Mulvaney posted the content to coincide with the NCAA March Madness tournament, before joking she didn’t know what sport she was promoting.
Experts are also warning that there is a risk of competitor beers running into a shortage, because of the high demand.
Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the ‘whole industry is in shock’ over the numbers.
Mulvaney posted the content to coincide with the NCAA March Madness tournament and sparked the backlash against Bud Light.
Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the ‘whole industry is in shock’.
He claims that the newfound demand for lagers not owned by Anheuser-Bush could result in a trickle-down effect on the industry.
He said: ‘Even Bud’s competitors aren’t really dancing on the grave because they know it could have happened to them.
‘You can’t just flip a switch and make beer. You know, beer is brewed. It takes, you know, at least a couple of weeks to make.
‘So, they haven’t had major supply issues yet, but we’re about to hit Memorial Day and we could probably see some supply shortages there.’
Schuhmacher even claimed that Molson Coors might not be able to give Americans enough beer for Memorial Day weekend.
The Mulvaney deal came after the brand’s ousted marketing chief Alissa Heinerscheid said she planned to update the ‘fratty’ and ‘out of touch’ branding.
Industry analysts have warned that unless something drastic changes, the negative volume trends will continue into the summer.
Bud Light sales have fallen significantly since the beer’s partnership with Dyland Mulvaney and analysts at JPMorgan expect it will cause Anheuser-Busch earnings to slide 26% this year.
A new profile of the company’s handling of the PR, social media and sales backlash admits the company and CEO Michel Doukeris (pictured) are trying to remedy their failures
One reported move is Bud Light buying back cases of unsold and expired beer.
For the week ending May 6, in-store sales of Bud Light across the US were down 23.6 percent compared to the year before. And the week before that, ending April 29, sales dropped by 23.3 percent.
This follows declines in sales for the week ending April 22, which were at 21.4 percent. And seven days earlier, the dip was 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail by Bump Williams Consultancy.
The data – showing that US sales are dropping by as much as 20 percent each week – has since been described by industry experts as ‘bad.’
Bump Williams from Bump Williams Consultancy told DailyMail.com: ‘I don’t think the declines in sales/volume will get any worse, but I do think their negative volume trends will continue.’
He said sales dipping by 20 percent seems to be the new ‘norm’ for Bud Light.
But he added that experts are waiting to see what will happen to sales over Memorial Day and the summer selling season to assess if the damage will continue.