Monster Beverage (NASDAQ: MNST) - Q4 2024 Earnings Call

And welcome to Monster Beverage Corporation's investor update meeting, webcasting live from the NASDAQ Market site and frigid New York City. I'm Roger Pondell with Pondell Wilkinson, the company's investor relations representative. For those of you here, thanks for braving the cold and attending in person. For those of you listening on the webcast, thank you for joining us. Please know that the slide deck for today's presentation is now posted on the company's SEC website if you'd like to follow along at monsterbeveragecorp.com. Before I introduce and turn the meeting over to Monster's co-chief executive officers Hilton Schlosberg and Rodney Sachs and Senior Management team, I want to remind everyone that certain statements made in today's presentation may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the US Securities laws as amended regarding the expectations of management with respect to the company's future operating results and other future events, including revenues and profitability. The company cautions that these statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of the company's control, that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from the statements made today. For a detailed discussion of risks that could affect operating results, please see the company's reports filed with the SEC, including its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023 and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. We ask that you please hold all questions till the end of the presentation. And with that, it is my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Rodney and Hilton.

Thanks, thanks everybody, afternoon, welcome. I'd like to just talk a little bit about the general macro and the category and Monster, and then we'll start turning the call over to some of the individuals who go into specific areas of our business and specific areas that they are responsible for. As I'm sure you all have noted from the Nielsen reports over the last 12, 4, and 1 week periods, it's been a little bit choppy, but we feel that we are seeing an acceleration in growth in the energy drink category, including particularly in Monster's performance if you take it back from the middle of the year. So we sort of think that that's important and encouraging. The emergence of a number of alternative energy brands contributed to the broadening of energy drink consumers and increased growth in the category in 2024. However, the growth rates were largely attributable to increased distribution gains as opposed to sales velocity, with the result that we are now starting to see a marked slowdown in their growth to the low teens and single digits, and in some cases even to a negative position. We believe that such moderation will continue in 2025. As with everything, there's always exceptions. We're seeing for example a brand like Alani Nu that's picked up some acceleration in sales, but you got to look at the brand and look at the whole market. It's a very niche brand, it appeals very female-forward, and it's very niche. So we think that there are issues and we don't believe that that brand will have the legs and longevity in the long term. We think some of the more solid players will continue to grow and solidify and strengthen the energy category. Innovation played an important role in sales gains achieved by Monster and Red Bull, who are the main two players in the category in 2024. In 2024, Red Bull stepped up its innovation through the launch of a number of full flavor and zero sugar products as compared to 2023. We think it's almost, our count is about 19 versus 10, but they will obviously have a challenge and they'll have to recycle over that increase in innovation coming into 2025. Monster's 2024 innovation was robust, we think was really good, although execution and distribution levels didn't quite meet expectations. We reviewed our strategy, we revised it, we engaged with our bottlers, and we really looked at how do we do things differently going forward. We put together a plan and decided to implement that plan with the launch of Ultra Vice Guava. With that, that launch was really in our minds very, very successful. We achieved substantially improved execution and distribution levels, and that has provided us with a roadmap that we intend to follow in launching our extensive innovation platform that is planned for 2025, and which you will hear more about later in this presentation. As you continue to increase your innovation, obviously there is complexity. Your bottlers have other products and other products from the Coke system to do, and you've got to find a way that everybody can get attention and you can work your brands into the launch plans and into the sales to maximize efforts. We think we are looking forward to being able to do that at a much higher level in 2025. I'd like to take you through a recent slide that we put up. The global off-trade energy drink category is currently estimated by Global Data at about $77 billion and is forecast to grow to $111 billion over the next 5 years with a compound annual growth rate of 7.6%. Energy and the energy category remains the most exciting growth category and area of future growth and expansion in ready-to-drink beverages. So we are very excited with the future and the prospects for the category generally and for Monster as a company. We believe that the company is uniquely positioned to capture a meaningful share of that growth through a broad range of subfamilies and the range that we have within the Monster family, which appeals to a broad range of consumers, particularly on an increasing basis in the zero sugar areas, and also through our diverse portfolio of energy brands both in the US and around the world. With those sort of general remarks, I'd like to hand the meeting over to Emily Terry, Chief Commercial Officer, who will take you through some of the attributes of the Americas. Thanks.

Hi, I'm going to take you through the Americas region. We do business primarily with the Coca-Cola bottlers in this region. We are in 43 territories and happy to report that we have market share leadership in markets such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico, and most importantly in the United States. Looking at the business in the United States, you all see this data and probably subscribe to it much more than we do, but non-alcoholic ready-to-drink business in the US was up, but energy drinks actually grew and had inflationary growth as well as soft drinks and others. So the business was very healthy. But what's very interesting is that the units grew in energy. Why is that important? That's important because retailers are going to give space to the categories that grow in both units and in dollars. In our conversations with retailers in the US, they are going to give more space to the energy category beginning in 2025. As we look at our performance in the energy category, and as was remarked earlier, the category is starting to show some better trends than it had historically. Over the 52-week period, the category was growing at 3.2%. The latest 13 weeks has the category growing at 6%. Part of that is attributed to the price increase that we took in November this year, which has generally been very well received. In addition, in the latest 4 weeks in US convenience, it has also accelerated from about 3.2%. So the convenience channel in the US is still where the majority of energy drinks are sold, and we're seeing acceleration in the convenience category as well as the all other channels. We're seeing the market accelerate as well in the latest 4 weeks. As far as the manufacturers, generally speaking, it's us and Red Bull that represent 70% of the market in the United States. With that, for us to continue share leadership, we know it's very important for us to innovate. So we had very good innovation in 2024 and it delivered $640 million in revenue for us according to Nielsen. Red Bull also stepped up their innovation game last year as well. So we know innovation is vitally important for us to have a successful year. As we spoke about earlier, we had a great launch with Vice Guava and we had system alignment with our bottling community and with our retailers and with our marketing partners as well. What you can see on this chart is that Vice Guava actually was incremental to the Ultra family. We launched it in October and we are now almost about a 1 share in the latest Nielsen reads. So we were very excited about this system-wide launch last fall. And then lastly, here is a representation of the innovation that we have forthcoming, and we have samples of it available for you all to try hopefully after the presentation today. Moving to Latin America, the energy drink category is quite smaller than it is in the US. In the US it's about 18% of the business in NARTD, and in Latin America it's 6%. Historically, soft drinks have always been a bigger player in that region. However, energy drinks are growing. We're proud to report that we have market share leadership in Latin America, and as you can see on this chart, we have about 38% of the market in Latin America. What you also see in this market is that while it's us and Red Bull, there are a lot of other players in this market, and mostly these players are in that affordable energy. So as mentioned earlier in the earlier part of the presentation, we're excited about the opportunities that are available to us in the affordable energy drink category and will continue to expand markets in this region to capture that consumer. And then lastly, as we talked about our total market share, the big countries that we do business with in Latin America, proud to report that we are number one not only in Brazil but in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Considering that we just launched those countries in the past 10 years, without the exception of Mexico, pretty happy to report our market share leadership position in this region. And with that, I shall turn it over to my colleague who runs the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region and most recently the Oceania region as well, Guy Carling.

Thank you, Emily, and hello everybody, good afternoon and good evening. The Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, and South Pacific region is composed of 79 different markets serviced by 19 bottlers. MEC has a portfolio of 12 brand families within it and value share leadership as measured by Nielsen in seven markets: Ireland, Kenya, Latvia, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, and Spain. According to Global Data, the energy category outpaced in value growth the other major NARTD categories and it's forecasted to continue to do so between 2024 and 2029, growing at a CAGR of plus 6%. Energy now represents 12% of the NARTD category and it's the second largest contributor to its growth, growing $1.8 billion across EMEA and OSP in 2024. If we look at the markets covered by Nielsen and Sakana across EMEA and OSP, the MEC portfolio reached 3.55 billion euros in value sales, up nearly half a billion euros versus prior year, up 14.7%, outpacing the category growth by 1.8 percentage points. On the right you can see the three anchor bottlers in the region, CCEP being the largest with 10 Western European markets and the majority of the markets in Oceania and the South Pacific. The MEC portfolio grew ahead of the energy category in all of our sub-regions, except Western Europe where Monster was more in line. The Monster brand is the key driver of value sales growth across all sub-regions, but in addition in Africa and the Middle East, our portfolio growth is driven in great significant amount by our affordable brands. There are many brands across the region and local competitors, but the clear leaders overall are the Monster Energy Company and Red Bull. MEC represents nearly a quarter of the total energy category and Red Bull just over a third. The MEC portfolio grew faster than Red Bull over the last 12 months. Red Bull accelerated its growth in more recent time period in the last 13 weeks and we closed the gap again in the last 4 weeks. But I would note that the category, MEC, and Monster grow double digit in value sales in all time periods. Those growth rates in the last 13 weeks see the MEC portfolio holding share across EMEA and OSP, growing ahead of the category again. Then in the last 4 weeks, MEC affordable brands gained the most share points ahead of their competitors and contribute 30% of MEC unit growth as measured by Nielsen. When we look at the Nielsen unit sales growth and the share within the MEC business, we have a portfolio of brands. Within Monster, we market and sell four Monster brand platforms. Monster overall is 63%, nearly two-thirds of the unit sales in EMEA and OSP, and 37% of those unit sales come from the strategic and affordable brands according to Nielsen and Sakana. Then looking at some of the regions in turn: in Western Europe, the Monster brand is now ranking number 9 in Nielsen value sales across all FMCG, ahead of household giants such as Heinz, Pampers, and Heineken, and it's quickly closing the gap to Pepsi. Our portfolio has a 26.7% Nielsen share of total energy. It's number one as mentioned in Spain, Portugal, and Norway. This growth is driven by multi-channel distribution and shelf space gains. A good example is someone like Burger King, where we now have Monster listed and selling in over 2,000 Burger King outlets in over 10 markets in Western Europe. Great Britain is our oldest market in EMEA and OSP and we now hold a 34.4% Nielsen value share. Monster was identified by the grocer and Nielsen as the largest contributor to total food and soft drinks growth in 2024. This was driven by innovation such as Monster Juiced Bad Apple, an EMEA innovation that won Product Launch of the Year across all categories at the UK Retail Industry Awards, as well as general retail space gains and the growth of our multipack business. Eastern Europe is a fragmented region comprising of 31 markets where we hold portfolio value share leadership in two of them and are larger than Red Bull in seven. In Poland, a key market in Eastern Europe, Monster has been growing plus 14.4% in Nielsen value sales in the last 13 weeks and accelerating to 16.3% in the last 4 weeks, consistently ahead of the energy category. In Africa and the Middle East, Monster Energy Company is number one in Nielsen value share in South Africa and Kenya, number two in Nigeria, and number three in Egypt. It's a very differently made up market and the affordable energy category represents 64% of the energy category value sales, and our MEC affordable brands grew 50.6% in Nielsen value sales in the last 13 weeks, ahead of the affordable energy category. Turning to the other side of the world, Monster has in 2024 been the fastest growing NARTD brand in Australia and the number one contributor to the energy category growth in the Philippines. We relaunched Monster in the fourth quarter of 2023 and launched our affordable brand Predator in the second quarter of 2024, and we're planning to launch both brands in Indonesia this year in 2025. Across EMEA and OSP, we leverage our international marketing assets in each and every market such as McLaren, UFC, and MotoGP, and then we complement them with local assets such as different soccer leagues, the English Premier League, the Bundesliga, the AFL in Australia, Speedway in Poland. And then lastly and very importantly, innovation is critical to our success in the region. We launch global products successful around the world, but then we also complement them with EMEA specific innovation. In 2025, we're particularly excited about the prospects of our newly developed Lando Norris SKU which will roll out from the middle of the year across key markets. Thank you very much for your time and I'll pass back to Hilton.

Good afternoon everyone. Talk about a little bit about the power of the portfolio. Again, when you look at our portfolio, very diverse, very deep, the best in the business when you're looking at energy across the globe, right? But it's really important for us to do two things very well: we have to continue to grow the core and we have to attract new consumers into the category. I've broken down the presentation a little bit to talk a little about each of those. Let's talk about growing the core first. When it comes to marketing assets, you can see on this page an unbelievable lineup across the board of assets. I'd put that up against any CPG company out there. There's staples that you'll see in there like Motocross, you'll see UFC, you'll see X Games, you'll see PBR. Not only staples in motorsports and action sports, but also staples in what I'll call our sneaker cons and our lifestyle activities with local music festivals. Two key renewals have already taken place. We have a 5-year deal done with the UFC, returning to that center octagon premium signage that everybody's accustomed to. And we have also renewed a deal with the X Games, again featuring the Winter X Games in Aspen which are this week coming up, and then two Summer X Games which will take place in Sacramento and also Utah in 2025. Now the other thing that we've been accustomed to is really establishing the influencer market out there, ambassadors. We've done that through over the years with three major key, what I'll call legends of our brand: Ken Block, Valentino Rossi, and also Rob Dyrdek. And really what that has led us to today is a roster that's very diverse and delivers an unbelievable amount of impressions across the board. I don't have to read all the names up there, but you see the likes of Ice Cube, Tiger Woods, Chloe Kim, a skate phenom in Brazil named Risa Leal. So again, our roster is really, really solid when it comes to delivering impressions to our consumers. 2024 was no exception on delivering winning podiums, medals, championships. You can see those sports listed up there, but it was across a variety of sports, whether it was surfing, UFC, snowboarding, etc. A great run for 2024 for us. F1 and the McLaren team was no exception to that. They delivered the 2024 Constructor Championship with Lando Norris having Monster signage and Oscar on their helmets throughout all of the season in F1. So that was a great piece. But we also have to talk about it's one thing to have the goods, how do we get that down to the retail level from an execution standpoint? I'm going to take you through some of those examples right now. In the United States, there are things like innovation, loyalty programs, gaming in diverse markets like Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles. You can see how we take those assets down in the retail environment and leverage them to build awareness for our brands and impulse purchase. You move on and talk about international, it's the same thing. We look at properties like UFC, F1, MotoGP again in major markets like Brazil, Sweden, and Spain, building out those displays and building awareness and point of purchase for our brands in those markets. Hilton mentioned the global strategic brands. I'm going to give you three examples here: NOS in the United States, Burn in Europe, and also Mother in Australia. Those are three of the 12 that he mentioned. But we're utilizing different marketing platforms in those markets. Like NOS with motorsports, Burn uses music, and we go directly after that Australian consumer who's a little bit different out there, a great attitude, a great feel for our brand with Mother in Australia. Now also affordable energy, we talked about that. It continues to grow across the globe. It becomes a bigger player in certain markets. You can see our display execution in China, Honduras, Egypt. The reason we're able to do that is because we have a full range of flavors and a packaging portfolio supporting that affordable energy segment, and more importantly taking that down to the local markets and the local level, whether it's street cricket in India, soccer pitch branding in Mexico, looking at consumer promotions in Nigeria, even utilizing that PET new bottle for Predator in China to again build awareness for these brands. We also have a global asset within this mix on the Predator marketing, and that's the Chelsea Football Club, that has a very diverse roster of players with different countries of origin that we can leverage in the markets where Predator and Fury reside. Okay, and finally the second piece of the puzzle: how are we attracting those new consumers and bringing them into the mix? Well, once again we lean heavily upon our diverse portfolio. You can see three brand families that are really doing that well: Ultra, Bang Energy, and also what we're doing with Reign and Reign Storm, going after diverse targets, different demographics, and competing in the marketplace in the different categories that are popping up. We also feature things like gaming that goes over that 18 to 22-year-old consumer coming into the mix. We do that by sponsoring team sponsorships, we have events, we have one of the major properties across the globe called Call of Duty, and then a big roster of global streamers, again getting the brand's DNA out there into certain spaces like gaming where it makes sense for our consumers. Music is the same thing. Top artists across different genres, we sponsor music festivals, we sponsor top tours. Again, music is another pillar of ours that connects with those new consumers coming into the mix. And finally, we wrap this in a bow with our social platforms and our channels. It's how we communicate frontline with our consumers. You see 44.5 million social followers across the globe, 1.9 billion paid social impressions, and taking that roster that I showed you of athletes and ambassadors and creating unique content that our consumers are looking for, again going against those platforms that you see on the left hand side. And finally to wrap up this section, we've been trying new and different things. I'm going to give you two examples: brand personalities Amp and Kai Cenat. Kai Cenat has been sort of a staple on TV lately, but we have them as part of the Any Means Possible group. They're a major content and streaming group that delivers unbelievable numbers across the board for our Bang Energy brands. We also have things like Meline Klein, who is an American actress in one of the most popular shows with that 18 to 24 demo, with Reign Storm across the board. So again, utilizing different entities to really make a difference and get out on their social feeds and connect with our consumers. And finally to sum all of this up, let's talk about the power of the McLaren. Over 550 plus global ambassadors with over 670 million people reached on their feeds alone. Right, we talked about the best sponsorship lineup in consumer packaged goods. We have the most diverse portfolio of brands in all of energy. And finally, as has been revisited multiple times already, constant innovation across our global business units which keep up with that ever-changing consumer base and that diverse consumer base that's out there. So with that, I'd like to say thank you and I'd like to bring back up Rodney Sachs.

That interesting musical chairs we're going through here. I just like to chat to you about Monster Brewing a little bit. Monster Brewing was a diversification. We acquired the company strategically to enable us to open up an alternative distribution channel that we could use to grow and expand the company in both alcohol and non-alcoholic brands. We did that. With that in mind, we worked our way through the existing management and there were challenges. What we found was that the craft, while they had a distribution system, the way craft beers really worked, they didn't really function and go to market the same way that Monster did by going down distributor to distributor, working each small store. Although they were craft brands and they were regional, they generally tend to go through the warehouse system or going to the chains, going to the retail grocery. They don't really get deep into the distributor convenience set. So after a little while, we realized we went into and we launched our Beast brand through them, which is really a flavored malt beverage, in which we had a different strategy. We wanted that to follow the Monster strategy of building it store by store. So we ended up with really two different divisions: we had the craft traditional group and then we started to bring in Monster and other G, and that ran the two. Ultimately, we felt that we needed to reorganize the company and streamline. We've changed the name to Monster Brewing from Kona. We've appointed a new leadership team, it's now headed up by Raro, who is a veteran Monster person who grew up in the field and in the streets with us. He's also now bringing across a number of ex-Monster people with him who are already focused on growth, focused on working the market store by store, working the distribution system, and resetting goals and direction. We're streamlining production. Our strategy is to probably end up with two main production facilities, the third one is more for smaller brands or smaller SKUs. So that's sort of where we are. We're reducing the head count. We're continuing to look at innovation as we continue to restructure and focus. We've launched Beast. We initially came out in a 16 oz and we've gone through some learning curves, so we've converted that into a 23 oz. We've got new flavors in the 24 oz, 3.20 24 size of the Beast. One of the main brands we're going to persist with is the High brand, and under the High brand, Gator City, we've got Florida Man which we've launched in 24 oz size cans mainly in the Florida and Southeastern areas. One of the other good brands that we bought which is well known is the Dale's brand. We've launched an IPA and an easy IPA in Dale's. We've also launched a non-alcoholic version of Dale's to try and address that emerging consumer who wants the beer products but doesn't want the alcohol content. Sometimes it's intermittent or sometimes it's just what they're trying to obviously avoid alcohol. And then finally, we are looking on the craft side at introducing in the next couple of months two chilada products under the brand Nam Mei. So we're continuing to innovate, try different things, and streamline and get the organization more focused and to start continuing to grow. So we're positive about this organization. We're positive that we'll be able to utilize the system. We've streamlined the actual distributor network. They had different networks as well for different of their product lines. We've managed to try and consolidate that into a stronger system now. Just to talk about how we're going to go forward on the marketing side: the ready-to-drink, the Beast and Nasty Beast, they already have the Monster heritage, so those we're going to continue to market them similarly to how the platforms we utilize for Monster, NASCAR, etc. In the case of Dale's and the case of High, those sponsorships will be specific, more tailored to those brands and to their regions as we go forward. So I just wanted to say that we probably are going to expect to take further impairment on this division, but we are confident that we will be able to use this platform. We have some ideas, it's premature for us to discuss the ideas both on the alcoholic and non-alcoholic side at this time, but we do have new innovation planned and new ideas to continue to grow that part. We believe it will continue to be a staple in the business and will assist us in getting future growth for the company as we continue to expand. Thank you. I'd like to have Paul come up and take you through some of the exciting parts of the business.

Thanks Rodney. All right, we'll make this quick, just a few highlights from our sustainability...

Yes, thank you, Paul, and welcome everyone. Just to finalize a couple of last slides for our presentation today before we get into the Q&A section. One of my favorite slides that I always refer to is this particular one in here which shows net sales over the last 20 years. When Monster was launched in the spring of 2002, our first full year results we had $110 million worth of sales on the far left hand side. And for the full year 2023, we ended net sales at $7.1 billion with a compounded annual growth rate of 23.2% over that period. Taking a look even at the last five years, we have a CAGR of 14.2%. So always feel very happy to be associated with a company with this growth. Just a couple of highlights for our full year performances. Well, before I get into that, I want to say that the company Hansen was acquired in June of 1992, and since then we've had 32 consecutive years of increased sales over that time period. In the full year of 2023, we've achieved $7.1 billion worth of net sales, which was 13.1% over the net sales of $6.3 billion in 2022. Net income for 2023 was $1.6 billion, up 36.9% over the 2022 period, and that resulted in a $1.54 diluted earnings per share for that full year. For the nine months ended September 30th of this past year, sales were up 5% over the same nine-month period in 2023. The nine-month net income for that period was $1.2 billion, which resulted in a diluted earnings per share of $1.21. And during the year of 2024, the company acquired 72.2 million shares of its common stock at an average price of $52.70, or for $3.8 billion of cash returns to shareholders. And with that, I'd like to turn over the presentation back to our Vice Chairman, Hilton Schlosberg.

Good afternoon. Peter Grom from EBS. So a two-part question on international, maybe just a near term and a long term. You know, a lot of discussion on the sequential improvement in trends that you're seeing here in the US. We've kind of seen international performance be a little bit choppy over the last couple of quarters, so I'd be curious if you're seeing that similar sequential improvement in trends in your international markets as you move through the fourth quarter. And then just, you touched on this to start the presentation, you just touched on it now, the long-term growth CAGR of I think it's 7.6%, but you also showed that one chart that showed EMEA growing at half the rate. So I'd be curious if you were to unpack that 7.6%, what are you expecting from your international markets versus the US? Thanks.

Thank you, H. I think one of the slides we looked at before, on a year-to-date 13-week and 4-week basis, the category, MEC, and Monster all growing double digit in value sales growth. I think there remains penetration opportunities. The per capita consumption of most of EMEA is much lower than the US, for example. The UK per capita has now reached the same as our oldest market, the US, but there are opportunities in penetration and per capita consumption. So, what we're seeing is a fairly solid double-digit growth in the category across the combined region, with varying growth rates by market, but aggregated growing at that double-digit level in value sales.

Do you want me to comment? Same as Guy, we see incredible opportunity in points of distribution in Latin America, especially, with the energy category only at 6% and sparkling soft drinks at 60%. There's lots of room for points of distribution in even some key markets like Mexico, where we've had distribution for over 13 or 14 years. So we see an incredible opportunity with affordable energy as well in that market. And the developed countries in Asia Pacific are not growing as fast as they were because they've kind of come to some degree of maturity. I talk about Japan and Korea, but there is phenomenal growth in the balance of Asia Pacific. Guy spoke a little bit about the Philippines, Indonesia, and we see incredible growth ahead of us in China. We see incredible growth in India. There's a lot of opportunity, a lot of space for us to grow and develop.

Philip oforia... Rodney, you provided some perspective on the US energy drink category and the re-acceleration that we've seen recently. As you go back to what happened in the summer, what do you think were the reasons for the deceleration and the more recent re-acceleration? And then thinking a little bit longer term, a lot of the growth has been driven by these clean energy or better for you energy. You provided some perspective on Alani Nu and some of the other brands. Can you just discuss your strategy there and how do you capture that incremental consumer, especially the consumer that is looking more at the labels and with FDA kind of banning Red Dye Number 3 and other dyes like Red Dye Number 40? But how do you capture that incremental consumer? Thank you.

If you look at our existing brands, we have a very broad range already. If you take the Monster brand, we have a very extensive, deep portfolio of zero sugar products. When you say the perceived more healthful products, when you look at the ingredients, there really isn't very much difference in the ingredients. There's nothing unhealthy in Monster products. So it's a question of how do you market and how do you position your product. Obviously, we've got strategic plans to look at how do you get the consumer focused on and educate them on the fact that you've got a range like Ultra, which is positioned differently really than Monster within that family. So we have these different platforms, and same thing for Rehab, for example. We've got unique platforms. It's low, very low calorie, low sugar, and it's non-carbonated, so we have a unique position. What caused the industry to have this little bit of a slowdown in the middle of the year? None of us are sure about. I think there's been some buying issues, purchasing power. There have been some new products. In many cases, they become like the flavor of the month. Consumers really have an appetite for flavors and an appetite to try new things. I think we are seeing that on a broader basis in all consumer products. So these products are getting trial, but at the end of the day, the question is what do the brands stand for? One of the challenges we think these brands have is there are a variety of flavors and the consumers switch. If you look at the results more recently of some of the competitors, their top performing SKUs are all negative, and they're making up sales bit by going to new products. But then you have a revolving door; you got to keep on that treadmill and keep running. I think what we are fortunate is that we really have a very strong brand equity and franchise in Monster. Green, Monster original flavor is Monster. We've now been able to expand on that with Monster Zero Sugar, which is doing really well and continuing to grow. And in the case of say Ultra, we have Ultra White, which is really your core, your leading product in that category. So we think that's going to help us going forward. And as I said, we've also got the support brands: we have NOS, which is focused on that consumer in that motorsport; we have Bang now, which is a broader, different consumer base, it's growing; we have Reign, which is performance energy; we have Reign Storm. And we do have plans for some additional ways of tackling that going through. It's a little bit premature for us to address them now, but we will do that here and internationally. That's how we see we will be able to continue to stay relevant and to address the changing preferences of consumers as we stay abreast of it. The other thing we should just mention: we don't use any of these offensive dyes, and we do not use high fructose corn syrup either, so that becomes an issue. It's not in our products. The other thing you should remember, please, is that during the summer, there was a you know, consumer confidence was down, there was an election an impending election, the consumers had been hit and our consumers as well with higher gas prices, they were hit with energy bills that were going through the roof, we had a very hot summer if you remember, and they were hit by high mortgage rates. So to us, it was understandable that consumers would hold back on some of their spending. In the research that we did, suggested that they weren't switching brands, but instead of buying maybe three Monster energy drinks a week, they would buy two. So we shouldn't forget what happened in the summer.

Andre from JP Morgan. My question is on more on distribution. And if I recall correctly, at the same time last year you were regaining some distribution for Bang. And I wanted to know how you're seeing that land and how you're regaining distribution now not regaining, I'm sorry, with the new Ultra and also with Bang. How you're seeing the velocity because you mentioned that velocity had not been as strong in general for the category, so what you're seeing there. And then a clarification of the price increase you mentioned that it has been well received, but if you can talk about the cohorts, particularly the low-income cohort that is important for many companies.

You bet. Thanks, Hilton. The new guy gets... So first of all, in distribution, one of the main focal areas that you would have seen in Guava is we believe the importance of day one, minute one when we launch a brand. And so a hard push across the retail landscape with our bottlers. Very aligned priorities on our expectations of what we believe are the keys to success with the new brand launch. That's why you saw that surge. And we want all brand launches to be complimentary to our existing base, so you saw that in the numbers Emily showed where we strive to get that out there as quick as possible, but bring the base with it. And you saw that with all of our Ultra line. So we have a concerted push in that effort. We're also concentrating on distribution voids with key brands, with key distribution points. So not all convenience outlets are created equal. Obviously, we have strategic areas where we're focused versus those that would not provide the greatest return on investment. So we have a concerted effort with our bottlers, primarily our top 12 bottlers, which means about 92% of the US business, where we have a whole systemic process of how we approach that. And then you ask about Bang, so Bang is one of those areas as well. So not just Bang, I would say NOS, I would say some of our Rehab flavors. We're picking areas that we believe are of strategic importance and we focus on those distribution voids. And then I'll touch base on your price increase. I'm trying to be as brief as possible. So having about 30 years dealing with retailers in my former life in the Coke system, the retailers define a price increase success by being able to have modest inflation with volume growth. They have to have both. Retail dollar improvement is great, but if there's not that volume and you're seeing consumption lag, then it wasn't a success. And so as you've seen through COVID, a lot of CPG companies have taken a lot of rate and volume has trailed or been negative with most of them. So when I study companies, I look can they defy that elasticity algorithm? And right now, we're defying that. And that's the goal: how do we defy that algorithm where we're getting price but we're also seeing unit growth because that's a key consumption metric as we look at did that price increase work and is it sustainable over time? Thanks.

It's Mark Astram from Stifel. Two quick ones. Tom, just so you're not neglected over there, SG&A expenses have grown faster than sales for quite some time now. How does that reverse or how much control do you have over that going forward? Should we be expecting that to moderate? And then I think overarching this is very helpful for investors to kind of look at the company from the outside and say hey, there's no bench because all they do is hear from Rodney and Hilton. But clearly, there's more to it. So in that context, Rodney, and you mentioned about potentially stepping back a bit, we haven't heard an update. So if you could perhaps share a bit there, it would be helpful.

Sure, I'll go first on that one. So on the SG&A, we all know that it's made up of distribution and then we have selling and then your normal general and administrative expenses. The growth in distribution has increased a little bit, but we don't think that it's that much out of line with the actual growth that we have in topline volume. When it comes to payroll costs, there are certain payroll costs that we've experienced up through the September 30th numbers that we saw the payroll cost increasing at a faster rate than the volume rates. And with respect to the other general and administrative expenses, there's nothing that ought to be ordinary than we've experienced from prior periods. So if there was a specific observation that you've had, Mark, happy to address that. But overall, SG&A is growing slightly, but again, we're maintaining that in line with the volume growth as well as the net sales growth. The one key element of cost that's growing, of course, is the sponsorships and endorsements. We believed as we grew the company and as we got involved in sponsorships and endorsements as marketing tools for the brand, there was kind of an orderly playing field. Now, we've seen a lot of our competitors, even the smaller guys, really just pushing up the cost of doing business. That's one element of cost that we will see increasing. It's a sheer cost of working together and building this brand with some of our sponsorship and endorsement partners; it's becoming more expensive to do business.

Just on Mark's second part of his question. You are correct as to what this position is. There's been no final decision made by myself or the board. I will engage and intend to engage with the board and have a discussion with them. I think that as soon as we get to some definitive terms, we'll obviously then announce it. But what I can say is sort of if you ask me where my head is at, probably around mid-year, we'll probably see some change. I think the idea is that this is a company and a brand that I've loved and I've grown up with and been part of. So I think I can still contribute and play an important role, but perhaps in a slightly different position or perhaps not as hands-on or full-time. So there'll be a transition and we'll work through that. We haven't yet made that decision, but probably during the course of the year, we'll get there. And as I said, I will stay involved in areas that are near and dear to my heart: marketing, innovation. I'll be involved with the existing team. We have a good team and good brand strength, but I'll help; I'll be involved and stay involved. So more to come, but it will be some decisions made later this year. Thank you.

Bonnie Herzog, Goldman Sachs. I just have a few maybe big picture questions. First, you mentioned that you expect the category to continue to moderate this year. So in the context of that, can you say whether you expect your sales growth this year to be faster than what you're going to see in 2024? In other words, can you accelerate growth? And maybe the drivers. Thinking about some of the drivers that I heard today, you know, on innovation, your pipeline, would you characterize it as more robust in 2025 than what you rolled into the market in 24? And think about that in the context of what you also mentioned that you think some of the execution on that innovation wasn't as strong, and maybe that's a big driver that you expect in 25 to contribute. Pricing should be a driver; you just discussed the US pricing seems to be quite successful. Can we expect to see further pricing internationally? And then it seems like there was a big focus on affordable energy. I mean, quite frankly, there always has been, but it seems to be stepped up. So if you can talk about the incrementality of that move into affordable energy and the impact on margins. I know a lot there, but maybe important. Thank you.

Maybe I'll just talk about innovation. I think I'm more excited about the innovation in 2025. It's a broader lot of innovation. But perhaps more important than just the innovation is that I think the question was how do you get focus from the bottlers and retailers to have this innovation? And we often found we were getting sort of everything wants to be launched in the spring. Then you have everybody trying to launch their brands in spring before the summer. So we do have a different strategy, a different way. We've worked this through. We've had very extensive discussions with the bottling partners. We have them on board. We're all sort of focused now on how we can spread some of that innovation out over the year, or how we can spread the focus periods. We do believe we will have a better way of going to market, and we will have more success and drive more distribution gains from our innovation. If I look at some of the competitors, in some ways they've been able to get deeper than us on their innovation, and we should have done that. We have a great bottling system, so we will find a way to do better. So I'm optimistic, but you can't tell, it's not a sort of magical way of knowing what the innovation will ultimately come to fruition, but we're excited about it.

I think the other point on affordable, not to make this point, is that in many cases the affordable markets, the big affordable markets, are markets that we've not yet really penetrated. So we look at that as an opportunity. It may not be that those markets will be driven by Monster as the lead brand; I think that will play a part in those markets. They may be driven by affordable, but we believe that will be incremental to opening up new markets that we haven't yet been able to really get into and touch. You take for example, China, we have a good brand, Monster is growing, it's continually growing year after year, but there is an affordability issue, and there are some brands that are at a lower level that are doing very big volumes. So we're starting to see some really good roots out of Predator, and that might be something that will grow and open up that market to us. Similar things for India, Philippines, and places like that.

Great. Nick Moy from RBC Capital Markets. So just two questions: one on innovation and one on marketing. On innovation, it seems like the category has been grown through flavor over the last 20, 30 years, and function seems like it's becoming more important. So as you think about your long-term innovation pipeline, I was just curious how you sit on this philosophical question on function versus flavor, and have you any activity in the innovation pipeline around that area? I'm thinking new tropics and protein and all that kind of stuff. On the marketing side, a simple question. I know you guys have a very non-traditional marketing strategy and have done a wonderful job, but the scale of the business now might require some linear, normal advertising, and whether you like it or not, Red Bull has done it and they do it in their own way, but it creates awareness for the brand globally. So just curious on how you think about that from a marketing standpoint. Thanks.

Sure. From what I'll call more traditional means versus the digital era, we're always balancing that, right? So we're always looking at different opportunities, and whatever presents itself, that's how we'll sort of look at it and move forward. Right now, with our strategies and what we're doing on our social channels and what we're doing with our digital media, it has been working extremely well for us. However, I think we are open to opportunities when we look at some of these new segments like better for me, and what we're doing with Bang. I talked a little bit about even looking at creators and streamers versus where we were in a different type of digital environment, we've made some of those shifts. We're investing in those types of things to make impact with our consumer. So we'll continue to look at the consumer as the base and make sure that we're reaching those consumers and they're getting the awareness and the opportunity to see what our brands are all about. That's how we're going about it.

It's Michael Avery from Piper Sandler. Just wanted to follow up on when you were walking around the world a little bit, how Japan and Korea have matured, and it sounds like you don't expect much growth there. First, I guess, did I hear that right? And if that's the case, how far away is a similar situation in the US or Europe? Is this where the category goes? What are some of the differences that would set up the US differently enough, and how should we think about that?

Hey guys, Kevin Grundy from Jefferies. I guess the first one is, over the years or decades even, yourselves and Red Bull have kind of oscillated in terms of leading market share, but a lot of your growth has come from innovation to a greater degree than Red Bull has. It seems to have changed with Red Bull's position on innovation. It seems like what they're up to with sugar-free flavors is bigger than maybe what it's been before. So can you talk about the competitive dynamic versus specifically Red Bull and what they're up to now? And then, Rodney, thanks for being so forthcoming on your plans or potential plans. We have had management transition before with Mark Hall kind of leaving and returning and leaving again. So maybe if you could talk a bit about what you've learned in that process and how that informs how you plan to go through the process yourself. Thanks.

Well, I don't plan on leaving and coming and leaving and coming. I'll probably be a little bit dead before I come back. But the point is that it's different. Mark is still, we still work with Mark, just not at the levels we have before. I think it's very different. I'm very vested in the company. I still have a lot of stock. It's part of what Hilton and I have grown up to do for 30 years. It's not something you can go and just move on and change. So I will still be involved. But obviously, we've got good teams, good management to be able to work with them, help them, guide them, and continue to grow and be innovative. I think that will work. There's no time agenda, so it's not as though I want to retire and then nobody's going to see me again. It's just not going to happen that way. So I will be involved, but obviously got to let the younger guys come in and start to grow and develop and be the backbone of the company going forward, which we will be. And we wanted to show you the strength of the management team. There's 210 years of service among the collective team. That just shows the longevity of the Monster business. And we continue to recruit at senior levels to support our business. So I think we're pretty confident about the path forward from a staffing perspective. And those guys run a business with 6,500 people that are responsible. That's how big the Monster organization has grown: 5,500 of those are full-time and 1,000 part-time.

Just talking about Red Bull, as I said, we did see that there was a step up, but what Red Bull has done is they've placed more emphasis on flavor, and they've really seen the growth obviously like a lot of other people in the zero sugar part of the market. And they place more emphasis on that. But if you do look back at the actual innovation, it's a lot of trial and replacing of flavors, and then some stick and some don't. And they keep on replacing. I don't see that as being very broad. I think they got a little bit of a lift up this last year because of launching both full sugar and zero sugar at the same time and a number of SKUs. They also had a price increase which sort of stuck. So if you take that into account and look at their results, I think we're not sure that that's something that is of concern. We believe we have a much deeper bench, a much more functional range of products that will appeal to more consumers. I think we have ways we can probably do a little better in communicating the benefits of the low carb or no sugar products in our range. For example, one of the products that continues to grow is the Rehab range. It's the only non-carbonated tea-based product, and it continues to grow. It's a great product range. It's been around a long time, and it is low sugar. People may not perceive it to be low sugar — it's 20-25 calories a can. So again, I think we can and will do a better job of looking at that brand and promoting it separately to communicate that to consumers. So we have a range that will continue to broaden and address the consumer needs as they change.

Thanks everybody. Yeah, thank you everyone. That concludes the webcast. Thanks for joining.