Jack Daniel’s pushes Brown-Forman Q3 sales

The global popularity of Jack Daniel’s has once again boosted Brown-Forman sales, allowing the company to raise its outlook for full year growth.

Jack Daniel’s has helped Brown-Forman report a 5% growth in net sales for Q3

Overall, the company’s net sales grew 5% in the third quarter to US$1.08 billion, while its net income increased 12% to US$177 million.

Net sales for expressions under the Jack Daniel’s trademark grew 10%, pushed ahead by “innovative” variants such as Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel’s RTDs.

The booming Bourbon market also helped the group’s performance, with Woodford Reserve and Old Forester Bourbons reporting growth of 27% and 13% respectively.

Finlandia vodka’s family of brands performed well in the third quarter, as underlying sales grew 9%.

However, sales of Southern Comfort’s portfolio dropped 4% due to a “deteriorating” and “competitive” on-trade in the US, despite the introduction of the Whatever’s Comfortable global marketing campaign in 2012.

Geographically, the group experienced considerable success in the emerging markets – including China, Brazil, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, India and the CIS countries – where underlying net sales grew 12%.

In the developed markets, double-digit growth was noted in the US, UK and France.

Paul Varga, CEO of Brown-Forman, said, “We delivered great top- and bottom-line results in the third quarter, continuing the momentum from the first half.

“We believe our top-tier performance was due primarily to the global strength of the Jack Daniel’s trademark, disciplined innovation, our favourable skew to outperforming categories and price points, and our limited exposure to some of the emerging markets that have decelerated.”

Varga added that due to the “continued strength and resilience” of the business, Brown-Forman would be raising its full year earnings per share outlook to US$2.95-US$3.05, compared to the previous outlook in its half year results of US$2.80-US$3.00.

The company continues to anticipate high single digit growth in net sales for 2014.

Jack Daniel’s was also identified as the driving force behind Brown-Forman’s “very strong” half year results.