Ambev Earnings: Volume Miss in Q4 but Reasons for Optimism for 2024

Ambev lost some of its momentum of the last couple of quarters with a slightly disappointing fourth-quarter performance that included soft beer volume. The fourth-quarter volume decline of 0.1%, leading to a full-year contraction of 1.1%, was slightly weaker than we had expected. This is immaterial to our valuation, however, and we are reiterating our wide moat rating and BRL 18 fair value estimate of the ordinary shares. We regard Ambev as being a quality business with very high market shares, albeit with above-average cyclicality and risk relative to other global consumer staples companies, and the shares are attractively valued.