Heineken's organic revenues, earnings and beer sales all grew in the mid-single digits in Q3 compared with a year earlier. However, the Dutch brewer's shares fell more than 2% as beer volumes missed analyst expectations, with an especially sharp decline in western Europe. The trading update brought to a muted end a dramatic quarter in which Heineken won a hard-fought battle against ThaiBev for control of its Asia Pacific Breweries joint venture, which makes Tiger beer. Heineken's sales grew 7.1% year-on-year to 4.97BN/Euros after accounting for currency effects and the consolidation of revenues from acquisitions in Haiti, Ethiopia and Britain. Revenues rose 4% on an organic basis. Beer volumes grew more than 3% organically in eastern Europe and Africa, and more than 4% in the Americas and east Asia, however, volumes in western Europe fell 2.1% organically, with slight drops in Britain, the Netherlands and Spain and a double-digit decline in Portugal.
