Heineken raises beer prices to make up for falling demand

Heineken today said it was expecting beer consumption to fall in many parts of the world but will look to increase prices.

The company, owner of Scottish and Newcastle breweries, suffered last year as people cut down on beer drinking in the recession but pushed through price increases.

“The global economic environment will continue to lead to lower beer consumption and down-trading in a number of regions in 2010,” Heineken said.

The Dutch company, which also brews Amstel beer, said it was committed to maintaining or raising prices and would pass on excise duty rises — although increases this year will not be as steep as in 2009. Breweries' ingredients costs will fall because of a decline in the price of brewing barley, but Heineken said this would be offset by higher energy and marketing costs and rising advertising rates.

Heineken said underlying profit rose by 14 per cent on a like-for-like basis to €2.095 billion last year, broadly in line with forecasts, despite a 5.4 per cent fall in underlying consolidated beer volumes. A 4.5 per cent improvement in pricing and sales made for a 0.2 per cent drop in revenue. The figures were helped by a €155 million saving from Heineken's three-year cost-cutting programme.

Rival London-listed SabMiller said last month that its underlying beer volumes were flat in the last three months of 2009 as demand in emerging markets offset declines in Europe, North America and South Africa. Heineken's pain has been greater than its peers given that 70 per cent of its operating profit comes from Europe and North America. It has increased its emerging market presence to 40 per cent by buying the beer business of Mexico's Femsa.

European Pricing Platform announces partnership with ACCEVAL

Lendelede, February 15, 2010 - The European pricing Platform (ePP), serves as the first ‘Not-for-profit’ network for cross-industrial pricing decision makers in Europe. Through various on- and off-line media, ePP is dedicated to develop and share pricing best practices, effective tools, methodologies and populate technological solutions assisting in successful definition and implementation of Strategic Pricing.

ePP has added ACCEVAL as a new Pricing Technology Expert, exhibitor and sponsor of upcoming ePP events throughout Europe.

ePP is pleased to have Acceval as a Pricing Technology Expert partner and look forward to working closely with them.

Pol Vanaerde, ePP president, also added: "Acceval will join a carefully selected group of pricing technology experts from around the world. We have excellent relationships with our partners and I am sure ACCEVAL will enjoy being part of the ePP community.

"We are pleased to be included as a new partner of ePP’s Pricing Technology Experts. We believe ePP will provide us with the right platform to share our client success stories enabled by our pricing software.," noted Chung Chee Kong, Managing Director, ACCEVAL."

About ACCEVAL :

Acceval is a provider of price optimization and margin management software, with pricing excellence advisory capabilities. Acceval’s flagship pricing software, PriXLence™, is an enterprise class application which helps companies to deliver significant business values by identifying sources of price and margin leakages, improve price and margin realization through deal negotiation and execution enabled by best practices such as Value Pricing, Price Segmentation and Optimization. The solution is configurable and scalable and has been implemented across multiple B2B industries.

Acceval’s clients include Fortune 500 and leading multi-national companies.

The company is founded by a team of consultants from top consulting companies such as Accenture, Deloitte. PriXLence™, has won multiple awards including SAP’s Netweaver Excellence (Best Customer ROI) Award.

About European Pricing Platform :

The ePP offers your company to have the right pricing tactics in place to guarantee customer loyalty and deliver sustained margin growth to your business. Enhance your pricing know-how and be successful in it by joining this dynamic and yet resourceful pricing platform.

Judge: Touroperator may put pricing conditions'.

Vacansoleil heeft een korting geding gewonnen van twee reisbureaus die samenwerken met Tjingo.nl, tot voor kort bekend als Vakantiekaart.nl. Uit de uitspraak volgt dat een kleine touroperator zoals Vacansoleil voorwaarden mag stellen aan reisbureaus die zijn reizen verkopen.

Het kort geding was aangespannen door GoodBookers in Castricum en Vemde Travel, omdat Vacansoleil hen verbood reizen goedkoper aan te bieden via discountsite Tjingo.nl. De reisbureaus stelden zich op het standpunt dat ze zelf de vrijheid hebben om prijzen te bepalen.

Vinger in de pap Volgens de rechter hoeft die redenatie niet altijd op te gaan en mag Vacansoleil vooralsnog wel degelijk voorwaarden stellen aan de prijs die retailpartners vragen voor hun producten. Belangrijk in het oordeel was, zegt zowel Vacansoleil-directeur Bart van der Linden in Reisrevue als Tjingo’s Jan van der Tempel tegen Twinkle, dat Vacansoleil een relatief kleine touroperator is. Een vinger in de pap vindt de kortgedingrechter daarom te billijken.

'Totaal onwerkbaar' Van der Linden en Van der Tempel oordelen allebei dat de uitspraak, mits die blijft staan, nogal wat gevolgen zou hebben. Van der Linden in Reisrevue: ‘De positie van het reisbureau om wel of niet het prijsbeleid te mogen bepalen staat op het spel.’ Van der Tempel, die benadrukt wel belanghebbende, maar geen partij te zijn in de zaak: ‘Dit zou betekenen dat agenten (reisbureaus, red.) naar de pijpen van touroperators moeten dansen, omdat die dan niet meer aan de mededingingsregels gebonden zijn. Mededingingsrechtelijk maakt de agent in dat geval onderdeel uit van de salesafdeling van de touroperator. Omdat de meeste agenten zaken doen met vele tientallen touroperators, zou dan een totaal onwerkbare situatie ontstaan.’

Verzekeringsbranche Van der Tempel, die de 'intimidatie' van touroperators jegens reisbureaus eind vorig jaar aan de kaak stelde, verwacht dat het rechterlijk oordeel in hoger beroep of een bodemprocedure zal stranden. ‘Anders reiken de consequenties nog veel verder dan de reisbranche. Denk eens aan de verzekeringsbranche, waar intermediairs producten verkopen van verschillende partijen. De kans dat dit oordeel overeind blijft, acht ik heel klein.’

Bureaus aan zet De keuze voor een hoger beroep of een bodemprocedure is echter niet aan Van der Tempel, maar aan GoodBookers en/of Vemde Travel. Die zijn nog gewoon aangesloten bij Tjingo.nl, net als zestien andere reisbureaus. Samen bieden ze reizen van ongeveer honderd touroperators met standaard 5 procent korting aan.

Italian paste producers were operating as a cartel '

The five largest paste producers of Italy have been keeping for years the prices high by forming a 'paste-cartel'. The headquarters of companies such as Barilla, De Cecco and Divella last week were also the scene of house searches carried out by the Italian authority, reports Al-Jazeera. Each of the company immediately got a fine imposed of 12.5 million euro.

The search is the result of 3 years 'investigation that began in 2007, when the competition authorities' paste-boycott "proclaimed after the prices had increased by 36%. The Union of Italian Pasta Makers denies the existence of such a cartel and will appeal against the fines imposed.

Italië's vijf grootste pastaproducenten hebben jarenlang de prijzen kunstmatig hoog gehouden door een ‘pasta-kartel' te vormen. De hoofdzetels van bedrijven als Barilla, De Cecco en Divella waren vorige week dan ook het toneel van huiszoekingen die werden uitgevoerd door de Italiaanse mededingingsautoriteieten, meldt Al-Jazeera. Elk van de bedrijven kreeg onmiddellijk een boete van 12,5 miljoen euro opgelegd.

De huiszoeking is het resultaat van een 3 jaar durend onderzoek dat in 2007 begon, toen de mededingingsautoriteiten een ‘pasta-boycot' uitriepen nadat de prijzen met 36% waren gestegen. De Italiaanse Unie van Pastamakers ontkent het bestaan van zo'n kartel en gaat in beroep tegen de opgelegde boetes.

BT goes on broadband price offensive

BT outlined an aggressive pricing strategy for its new superfast broadband service yesterday in a move it hopes will enable it to poach rivals' customers.

Britain's leading fixed-line telephone company said consumers would have to pay £20 per month for its high-speed broadband service based on optical fibre.

The £20 offer is £8 cheaper than a similar broadband service provided by Virgin Media, the cable television operator and currently BT's only rival in high-speed internet access.

UK broadband speeds lag behind those in many other industrialised countries. BT is responding by spending £1.5bn on a new fibre network.

John Petter, an executive at BT's retail unit, said the pricing of the superfast broadband service would ensure it became a mass-market phenomenon.

"The name of the game for BT is getting customers to come back to BT for all their services," he added.

At 29 per cent, BT's share of the broadband market is relatively small compared with many of Europe's other former fixed-line phone monopolies.

BT's fibre network will provide customers with download speeds of up to 40 megabits per second, which is 10 times faster than the current industry average.

The network will support the increasingly popular activity of watching video in high definition.

Analysts say BT's aggressive pricing may prompt rivals such as Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB to sign wholesale deals with the company. If agreements are reached, these two groups would get access to BT's fibre network in order to supply high-speed broadband to their customers.

BT's fibre network will run past 40 per cent of homes by mid-2012, mainly in towns and cities. The company is willing to consider extending this to 90 per cent of households with public funding.

The government has proposed a 50p per month tax on telephone lines to finance superfast broadband infrastructure in rural areas. The Conservatives have opposed the levy.

By Andrew Parker, Telecoms Editor Published: January 22 2010 02:00 FF.com