The upcoming Euro 2024 will be hosted by Germany from 14 June to 14 July 2024. Historical trends indicated no significant fluctuations in share prices during major soccer events. Nevertheless, we anticipate that the global consolidated beer volume of the breweries in 2024 would remain stable at around 200mn hectolitres (Heineken N.V.) and 100mn hectolitres (Carlsberg A/S), respectively, supported by their off-trade channels. Effective 1st April and 1st May 2024, Carlsberg Malaysia and Heineken Malaysia have increased prices for certain beer products. Based on past price hikes, we don’t anticipate a significant drop in beer consumption as a result of the price change. Overall, we maintain our BUY recommendation on Carlsberg (TP: RM22.90) and Heineken (RM28.60) due to attractive valuation.

History & Background of Major Football Events in the Past 5 Years

FIFA World Cup 2022 (FIFA 2022): Held in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, it was the first World Cup to take place in the Muslim world, and the second held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan. To circumvent Qatar’s scorching climate, it was scheduled for November and December instead of the traditional months of May, June, or July. FIFA also revealed that Argentina’s shootout win over France in the final match had garnered close to 1.5bn global viewers while the opening match has attracted approximately 550mn global viewers. According to Integriti Padu Sdn Bhd (IPSB) Technology and Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) free-to-air over-the-top (OTT) platform drew a total view of 34mn for FIFA 2022 with more than 2.3mn total views for the final match.

UEFA European Championship 2020 (Euro 2020): Organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the tournament was hosted in 11 UEFA countries as a one-off event. This was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Championship competition, marking it as the second senior international tournament to have more than 2 nations as hosts. The tournament was originally slated for 12 June to 12 July 2020. However, it was postponed until 26 June to 11 July 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe during 2020. According to UEFA, Euro 2020 recorded a 5.23bn cumulative global live viewers with the final match attracted an average global live audience of 328.0mn fans. According to Astro Malaysia, the event has garnered over 8.5mn total viewers on traditional television channel and 3.0mn total viewers on AstroGo digital streaming platform.

Upcoming UEFA European Championship 2024 (Euro 2024): Hosted by Germany, a total of 24 countries are participating in this tournament. The tournament is scheduled from 14 June to 14 July 2024, marking a return to its usual 4-year cycle after Euro 2020 has delayed and played in 2021. The event is expected to attract a cumulative live audience of 5bn people worldwide.

Match Time

The match times for the round of 16 and onwards in 2022 FIFA World Cup were slated at 11PM or 3AM according to Malaysia Standard Time and Malaysia is 5 hours ahead of Qatar. As for Euro 2024, matches are scheduled to kick off at either 6PM or 9PM local time in Germany. In turn, the match will be broadcast at 12AM or 3AM in Malaysia (Figure 3). We believe the games starting in the evening would benefit both bars and restaurants, as football enthusiasts are likely to gather and support their favourite teams and players, which indirectly stimulates the on-trade sales of beer, as consumers often enjoy beer while watching the matches.

Source: TA Research - 9 May 2024