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# South Africans say they plan to drink less, and the beer keeps selling anyway
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/south-africans-say-they-plan-to-drink-less-and-the-beer-keeps-selling-anyway/
- Published: 2026-10-30T03:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T03:44:59.000Z
- Description: The world is drinking less and the big drinks companies are feeling it, but Heineken and AB InBev have just reported unusually strong sales in South Africa.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News, #big

The global alcohol industry has a growing problem: people are drinking less. South Africa, for now, is proving to be the exception. While consumption keeps falling around the world, two of the world's biggest brewing companies have just reported exceptionally strong sales in this country.

## A shrinking market everywhere else

To see how unusual that is, look at what is happening globally. IWSR, a drinks research firm, found that alcohol servings fell by an average of 2% a year between 2019 and 2025, across markets that make up about three-quarters of world sales. People are drinking less often, too: in a Euromonitor survey, 23% said they drank every week in 2025, down from 25% five years earlier. Younger drinkers are a big part of the shift. In a UBS survey, 32% of Gen Z drinkers had a drink every week, against 45% of older drinkers.

Investors have noticed. A Bloomberg tracker of 54 listed beer, wine and spirits companies has lost about $850 billion in combined market value since its peak in June 2021, close to half of what the group was worth.

## Then South Africa reported

Here the picture looks rather different. On Wednesday Heineken, which owns Amstel and Bernini, said its South African beer and ready-to-drink volumes grew by double digits in the third quarter. A day later AB InBev, the company behind SAB, said it sold more in South Africa than in any previous third quarter. It managed that in a quarter when its beer volumes worldwide slipped 0.1%.

Rather ironically, South Africans have been telling researchers they want to drink less. Earlier this year the market researcher Worldpanel by Numerator found that 30% of South Africans plan to cut back, against 17% globally. So South Africans may be keener than most to cut down, but that enthusiasm has not reached the brewers' sales figures yet. Part of the reason, Bloomberg reports, is that more South Africans keep moving to cities, where the big brands are easier to find.

## The brewers are adapting anyway

Whether or not South Africans follow through, the brewers are already changing what they sell. AB InBev's global revenue from alcohol-free beer jumped 35% in the quarter, and revenue from its Beyond Beer range rose 19%. Heineken's premium beer volumes grew 11.5%, well ahead of the rest of its range, helped along by Bernini here.

Not every drink is doing as well as beer, though. Heineken's South African wine business remained under pressure, and the company has now put its whole local wine portfolio, including Nederburg and JC Le Roux, under strategic review. Those brands came with its €2.2 billion takeover of Distell, completed in 2023\. "We are not making rash decisions on what to do, but we do have it under strategic review," finance chief Harold van den Broek told analysts on Wednesday, and he would not say whether a sale is among the options. South Africa may be bucking the global trend for now, but that does not mean the drinks business here is standing still.