UBS US Spirits tracker "April Update: industry trends still weak with no..."

Research evidence excerpt

UBS US Spirits tracker "April Update: industry trends still weak with no..."

Global Research

28 May 2026ab

UBS US Spirits tracker Equities

GlobalApril Update: industry trends still weak with no

sequential improvement Beverage

Sanjeet Aujla

Analyst

sanjeet.aujla@ubs.com

UBS US Spirits tracker update +44-20-7567 4529

In this report, we update our UBS US Spirits tracker for April, which integrates volume Peter Grom

and value sell-out data from NielsenIQ (including the liquor channel) and NABCA (17 Analyst

control states). We estimate our tracker now covers c70% of US Spirits industry $ value. peter.grom@ubs.com

We believe this provides investors with the most comprehensive US Spirits industry +1-212-713 3482

dataset on the sell-side (available upon request).

US Spirits category April trends in line with March ; industry remains weak

We present data for April, which shows Spirits industry value excl RTDs -4.7%, roughly

in line with March -4.6% (Q1 -4.4%). April volumes are a bit more negative -3.6% while

price/mix -1.2% slightly better. per NielsenIQ ex RTDs, April shows value trends were -

6.1%, which compares to -2% per NABCA ex RTDs selling day adjusted. Overall April is

sequentially worse vs Q1 Nielsen -5.3% but better Q1 NABCA -3.2%. We remain

cautious as the category appears to be losing share of total beverage alcohol, which is

co-inciding with the acceleration of higher ABV Spirits based RTDs.

Pricing and downtrading - price/mix still negative in April: Industry price/mix ex-

RTDs remains weak across almost all categories showing -1.2% in April slightly better

than March -1.6% but still weak. Headline pricing is still negative and promotional

activity steps up, with many suppliers competing for share. On top of that, several