NEW YORK -- Carbonated-soft-drink sales turned around during March, as energy drinks, sports drinks and even bottled water lost momentum, according to Nielsen all-channel data for the four weeks ending March 26, 2016.
CSDs
Carbonated-soft-drink (CSD) volume sales were down 0.1%, an improvement from a 0.4% loss in February and relative to the 12-week decline of 2.0%. Dollar sales were up 0.9%, also above 12-week trends of -0.3% and February growth of 0.5%.
"Diet CSDs continue to notably underperform regular CSDs," Vivien Azer, an analyst with Cowen and Co., New York, said in a research report.
Coca-Cola Co.'s CSD dollar sales were up 1.1% (-0.2% for 12 weeks) with unit volume growth of 2.0%, according to research report from analyst Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo Securities, New York. "Brand Coke (about 43% of Coca-Cola's CSD sales) improved to 1.1% dollar sales growth," she said.
PepsiCo's CSDs dollar sales were flat during the month (-1.6% for 12 weeks) with 0.9% unit volume declines during the period.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group’s CSD dollar sales were up 0.8% (+0.3% for 12 weeks) with a unit volume decline of 1.6%.
Bottled Water
Bottled-water sales growth was up 8.6% in volume during March, strong momentum but a slowdown from February when volume grew 10.8%.
"The bottled-water category decelerated but posted high-single-digit growth over the last four weeks," Azer said.
Dollar sales were up 7.0%, below the 7.5% growth seen over the last 12-week period.
Energy Drinks
Energy drinks, which were growing by double-digit sales momentum as recently as December, continued to stumble.
Total volumes were up 4.8% (vs. +5.8% over the last 12 weeks). Dollar sales grew 5.0%, which was below the 6.5% growth seen over the last 12-week period. Dollar sales grew by 10.9% during December 2015, according to Nielsen.
"The energy category generated relatively soft dollar sales growth ... driven by very weak Red Bull results with dollar sales growth down 1.0% this period," Herzog said. "Monster Energy results were generally solid with 7.7% dollar sales growth, [while] Rockstar Energy dollar sales returned to single-digit growth (+8.9%) and PepsiCo’s Kickstart remained strong (+20.9%)."
Sports Drinks
Sports-drink volumes were up 5.1%, above the 12-week growth of 3.5%, Azer said. Dollar sales grew 5.4% vs. 4.1% over the last 12 weeks.
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