Heineken sold more beer in the first quarter, reporting its first quarterly year-on-year growth in volumes in a year, and stuck to its forecast for profit growth in 2024.

The world's second-largest brewer said on Wednesday that beer sales by volume rose 4.7% organically in the January-March period, beating the 2.5% growth expected by analysts in a company-provided poll.

CEO Dolf van den Brink said in a statement that all regions posted higher volume and net revenue, and the company continued to see a sequential improvement in its business performance.

He added the quarter was helped by an earlier Easter and one-off effects.

Still, the brewer said it continued to see the economic environment as "challenging and uncertain".

"Despite the solid start to the year, we cannot extrapolate the reported top-line growth to the rest of the year," it said.

Net revenue before one-offs rose 9.4% organically to 6.85 billion euros ($7.33 billion), above the 7.2% growth expected by analysts.

 - Reuters