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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Welcome to the 2021 Q1 result call of Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Limited.
Hosting the call today from Budweiser APAC are Mr. Jan Craps, Executive Director, Co-Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Ignacio Lares, Chief Financial Officer.
Results of the first 3 months of 2021 can be found in the press release published earlier today and available on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Budweiser APAC website.
Before processing, let me remind you that some of the information provided during the result call, including our answer to your questions on this call, may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements.
These expectations are based on management's current view and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors beyond our control. It's possible that Budweiser APAC actual result and financial condition may differ, possibly materially from the anticipated result and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements.
Budweiser APAC is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any such obligation to, update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For a discussion of some of risk and important factors that could affect Budweiser APAC future results, see risk factors in the company's prospectus filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on the 18th of September 2019 and the 2020 annual results report published on the 17th of March 2020.
I would also like to remind everyone that financial figures discussed today are provided in U.S. dollars, unless stated otherwise. The percentage change that will be discussed during today's call are both organic and normalized in natural and unless otherwise stated, percentage changes refer to comparisons with the same period in 2020. Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items, which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of Budweiser APAC's normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company discloses the consolidated profit, EPS, EBIT and EBITDA on a fully reported base in the press release. Future details on the 3 months 2021 results can be found in the press release published earlier today.
It is now my pleasure to pass the conference to Mr. Jan Craps. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. I hope you're all safe and well. It's been a very exciting quarter for us. With the hard work, the resilience and commitment of our people and partners, we started the year with strong momentum and achieved market share gains in all of our key markets.
We recorded a significant industry recovery in China as well as the successful execution of our premiumization strategy across key markets. Both top line and EBITDA achieved strong growth, with EBITDA margin almost recovered through the 2019 Q1 levels.
Before I hand it over to Ignacio to take you through the financial performance, I would like to share some highlights of our key markets during the quarter. In China, we delivered volume growth of 84.6%, driven by the successful execution of our premiumization strategy and Chinese New Year campaign, coupled with a favorable comparable last year. We gained total market share, while maintaining a healthy level of channel inventory. We also gained market share in both in-home and e-commerce channels according to Nielsen.
Our Premium and Super Premium portfolios continued to be our key growth engine. Budweiser doubled this revenue compared to the same period of last year and grew by double digits compared to the first quarter of 2019. Revenue generated from our Super Premium portfolio grew by strong double digits year-on-year and compared to the first quarter of 2019.
In line with our premiumization strategy, we further enhanced our portfolio in adjacencies with great brands beyond the Beer category. We are excited to have announced 2 exclusive distribution agreements in Mainland China with the leading global premium energy drink, Red Bull, and with well-known spirit brands such as Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, Buffalo Trace, Southern Comfort and other premium spirits from Sazerac. This will allow us to provide consumers diversified drinking experiences in different occasions while capturing growth opportunities from accelerating trends in these categories. These 2 margin accretive brand portfolios will create great synergies with our existing portfolio and route to markets.
Furthermore, we have launched our own B2B platform to better connect and engage with our business partners, and over 4,000 outlets were activated during the first couple of weeks after launch. This platform will help our customers to improve their operational efficiency and leverage insights derived from the data to drive top line growth. We will continue to advance our capabilities in the digital space to drive long-term sustainable growth.
In terms of climate action, which has always been one of our ESG priorities, we are proud to have announced that our breweries in Wuhan, Kunming and Ziyang are now 100% powered by renewable electricity through purchased renewable sources and our on-site solar panels. These 3 breweries are all RE100 certified.
We are also actively working with our suppliers to reduce their carbon emissions as well. In March 2021, our glass supplier, Huaxing, completed their first on-site solar project at its Ziyang plant, achieving the first significant milestone of our sustainability supplier engagement plan.
As India is experiencing another significant wave of COVID-19 outbreak, the health and safety of our colleagues, business partners and communities remain our top priority. Despite the turbulence, we managed to achieve double-digit growth in both volume and revenue, driven by a high double-digit growth in our Premium, Super Premium and Non-alcohol portfolios.
In South Korea, our volume declined by low single digits, despite the COVID-19-related restrictions. We grew market share in both in-home and on-premise channels leading to a total market share gain. This reflected the increasing sales momentum of costs.
Riding on the positive momentum, we rolled out a national launch of Hallmark in February '21 to introduce our classic lager innovation made with high-quality domestic rice. We also launched an all-new cost campaign with a new and transparent bottle to further strengthen the leadership position of costs. We are pleased that these activities have been well accepted by consumers.
I'll now pass to Ignacio to take you through our financial results for the first quarter. Over to you.
Thank you, Jan. Good morning, everyone. I am delighted to join you all at this results call today as Budweiser APAC's CFO. To give you a brief background about me, I joined AB InBev in 2007, then held progressively more senior positions in the North America and Middle Americas zones, including CFO for Labatt Breweries of Canada and CFO for the Middle Americas Zone at AB InBev. I'm excited to join Budweiser APAC, and look forward to being in touch with everyone on this call.
As Jan mentioned earlier, the first quarter of 2021 was a very exciting quarter. Total volumes increased significantly, 64.6% higher than the first quarter of last year, attributable to a robust recovery in China. We delivered a year-over-year growth of 84.6% in China, driven by a strong execution of our premiumization strategy and Chinese New Year campaign, while maintaining healthy inventory levels across channels. This was partially offset by South Korea, which is still experiencing restrictions as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Revenues also significantly increased 63.7% higher than the first quarter of last year. Revenue per hectoliter grew in all of our key markets. However, overall remained flattish, fully driven by unfavorable country mix.
In China, our largest market in APAC, revenue per hectoliter grew by 4.3%, mainly driven by premiumization, while net revenue grew significantly, 92.5% higher than last year, and surpassing the same period in 2019. Overall, cost of sales improved by 16.4% on a per hectoliter basis, primarily driven by operational efficiencies as the volumes were covered.
Normalized EBITDA increased by 192.9% and normalized EBITDA margin increased from 17.9% in the first quarter of 2020 to 32.5% in the same period in 2021. In China specifically, EBITDA grew significantly 243.5% higher than the first quarter of last year and above 2019 pre-COVID levels. Normalized profit attributable to equity holders was USD 236 million, which is USD 242 million higher than the first quarter of 2020. Normalized EPS was USD 1.79.
So with that, Jan and I are here to answer any questions you may have.
[Operator Instructions]
And now we go for the audio question first, and we'll take our first question is Euan Mcleish. from Bernstein. .
Great. Congrats on great results. And can I start off by asking a couple of things related questions about the sustainability of your strong mix in China. So you've talked about the -- talk about the expanding geographic footprint of the Bud brand and kind of varied expansion has been a stronghold as being key drivers of that brand.
Can you give us a bit more color about the -- how much of the strong Bud brand performance is driven within your stronghold portfolio? And how much was the geographic expansion? And also, on the geographic expansion, I think, the thing was how much more do you have to go on the Bud brand around the country? And that's the first part of the question.
The second part of the question is really getting into that 4.3% revenue per hectoliter growth in China. How much of that relates to underlying premiumization and how much of that relates to the rebates [indiscernible] would be flagged in the fourth quarter? And also the kind of geographic impact of the CNY travel bans. I'm just trying to get an understanding of how sustainable is the revenue hectoliter is and what we can expect going through later in the year?
Thank you, Euan, and thank you for your question. Good morning. So let me take the first part of the question about expansion, and then I'll ask Iggy to talk about the second about revenue per hectoliter. So on the first one, you're right, Budweiser had a very strong performance in the first quarter. We doubled revenue versus last year, and we grew double-digit revenue versus 2 years ago. And really, a lot of it is driven by our expansion strategy.
And to your point, we can kind of to simplify spirit it in 2 different scenarios.
The first one has to do with channel expansion in the markets where we have a low market share. And there, really, it's about increasing coverage. It's basically doing what we've been doing in the last 10 years successfully in expanding Budweiser in the premium channels first, then expanding it into more sales channels, building it together with our wholesaler partners to build a strong route to market so that we can invest behind our brands in the new areas.
And I think to your question there on the runway, right. We actually have quite a long way to go with Budweiser, even with the size of the brand in China. Actually, we estimate that Budweiser is below 50% distribution in China today. And when you look at the most developed markets in the world, you will probably not find many stores where there is no premium brands available.
So actually, this part of the expansion strategy with increasing disposable income we know more and more consumers and as a result, more and more outlets will be very interested to get more Budweiser distribution in these areas. And actually, when you look at the expansion areas, Budweiser has been growing strong double digits. And so the brand is doing very well and growing strong double digits in the expansion areas.
When you then look at the second type of market where Budweiser already enjoys a high market share, which typically is in the areas with a higher disposable income, whether that's in the South, the Southeast or some of the urban centers, they're really -- it's all about expanding the number of occasions that we can address for our consumers.
So what you will see us do there is offer more variety, more innovations behind the Budweiser brand and some of our other brands. But sticking to Budweiser, for example, Budweiser Supreme is a good example. It's a single malt, specifically brewed version of Budweiser that targets the meal occasion. So we typically launch it in the restaurant channel, in the Chinese restaurants and then you can expand to more channels, not always targeting the meal occasion. But this year, we recently launched Budweiser Magnum, which is a higher ABV option for male bonding occasions.
And last year, we launched -- we actually piloted it. And this year, we're expanding the launder of Budweiser ME3, and ME3 is a flavored truly variant of Budweiser more targeted to female drinkers or to all people who like true beers and actually has been launched on e-commerce in the first phase and now we're expanding the launch to more cities.
So you see a target, different variants of Budweiser for different occasions because we know that consumers in these higher market share areas with more disposable income. They want more options. They want to explore more experiences. And so a brand like Budweiser can offer more choice to these consumers for different occasions.
So with these 2 strategies in the areas with a strong market share, we can leverage our existing route to market and offer more choice for different occasions. While in the expansion markets with low market share, we can expand our route to market and drive more premiumization in these markets where consumers are ready for that. So let me hand it over to Iggy for the second part of the question relating to ASP.
Thanks, Jan. So I guess maybe to build on that, first and foremost, even thank you for pointing out the 4.3%. So we had a very strong net revenue per hectoliter result here in China in the quarter. And that was driven by the continued success of the premiumization strategy that we have in place.
As you pointed out, we benefited as well from the timing really of Chinese New Year this year, right? So it was a bit later in the year. However, it also mentioned, if you recall, in the first quarter of 2020, the net revenue per hectoliter there was actually a challenging base as the volume last year was largely driven by Chinese New Year specifically, right, given the timing of COVID. And we know, of course, the Chinese new SKUs more heavily towards premium.
Despite this, compared to the first quarter of 2019, you'll notice that our revenue per hectoliter, which we achieved a mid-single-digit growth was driven likewise by the strong performance, both the Premium and Super Premium brands in our portfolio. So we believe the underlying fundamentals of our premiumization strategy are strong and remain strong.
And if you think of our Q1 results from that perspective, right, Budweiser doubled its revenue versus the first quarter of last year and actually grew by double digits versus the first quarter of 2019. As we look at the Super Premium portfolio, it grew its revenue by strong double digits versus both the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2019.
The Corona maintained its leadership position as the #1 super-premium brand by value and our Craft and Specialties portfolio more than doubled its revenue actually versus the first quarter of 2020.
So as you can imagine, premiumization will remain as the key driver of ASP growth moving forward, not only driven by Budweiser, but also by the rest of the portfolio, right, the Super Premium brands, which are growing quite a bit and also the growing adjacencies portfolio.
Our next questioner is Melody Zhou from CICC.
It's Melody Yuelang Zhou from CICC. And congratulations on such exciting first quarter results. I have 2 questions. The first one is Bud APAC, I know that has expanding portfolio beyond brewery to whiskey and Red Bull. So what is that APAC's strategy to expand their sales volumes and will they spend more sales expenses? This is my first question.
And my second question is, how do the mature Super Premium product such as Corona and Hoegaarden perform? And which product contribute more to the growth of your Super Premium or Premium products? The newly launched ones or the mature products?
Thank Melody. Good morning, and thank you for your questions. On adjacencies, you're right that we announced the expansion of our portfolio in adjacencies with 2 new partnerships. So one is the distribution agreement with Fireball in the Premium Spirits. And the other one is with premium energy drink Red Bull, so -- in the Non-alcohol space. And actually, both these distribution agreements, both of them are exclusive for Mainland China. They will come into effect on the 1st of June, so as of next month already.
When we may be talking about the spirits first, we're including not only Fireball but also Buffalo Trace, Southern Comfort and many other premium spirits from Sazerac in our portfolio. Of course, that would allow us to enter the high-end spirits market in China. At the same time, we also believe that this would capture many diverse drinking occasions that are complementary to beer.
Some of the new occasions we can capture with beer innovations, we also realize that some occasions and experiences consumers are looking for, we need a broader portfolio to be able to address them in a very effective way, and we know we are in a good position to do that by building and expanding this portfolio.
On the Red Bull, of course, there is a premium manager drink global market leader. But it also allows us to address a broader set of drinking occasions, obviously beyond beer because here, we're in the energy space. So both portfolios are more profitable for us than our beer brands on a per hectoliter basis. So these are real premium propositions. Obviously, there are very Red Bull already in the market, but this one is a premium version. And also in the spirits, we are in premium spirits space, and we believe this will build our portfolio from a premiumization perspective.
Both industries are in high-growth areas, so we expect that consumers will continue to grow the purchasing of these segments because of the increasing disposable income. And it also allows us to focus on the regions with a higher consumer demand based on our market maturity model.
And then last but not least, of course, we have a strong route to market with very strong premium wholesaler partners. And they already operate in the channels that these propositions have a lot of growth opportunity, for example, in nightlife or in Western bars. So our partners are also very interested to expand into the Premium Spirits business and Energy business. So we actually expect quite some positive synergies of expanding our portfolio and leveraging our strong partners in the route to markets to expand our success in premiumization.
Maybe second question that you had was also about premiumization in Super Premium, right, specifically. So you're right. We, of course, are well known for our brands like Corona and Hoegaarden but also Blue Girl, for example, has been a very successful integration we did just under 2 years ago. And also Blue Girl is performing very well.
So when you look at this combined portfolio, we delivered volume growth overall of 84%, like Iggy was saying. But when you look at the Super Premium portfolio, also there, we had very strong double-digit growth, both versus last year and 2 years ago.
Actually, to your question, all of our Super Premium brands, including Corona, Blue Girl, Hoegaarden, Craft and Specialties, they all had meaningful growth also versus 2 years ago versus 2019. So they're all very healthy and performing very well.
If you look at the smaller brands, we actually have quite some new news there in that we chose in the last 6 months, let's say, to bring a significant number of Craft and Specialties brands to China and to expand our portfolio by leveraging the very broad portfolio that our parent company, AB InBev can offer to Budweiser Pac because it allows us to expand to new channels where craft and specialties we expect to become very relevant propositions. We are already very strong in craft and specialty segments, right?
We're clearly the market leader. But we believe that by building our portfolio with more of these brands, we will be very early in getting to market with all these new experiences that our consumers can discover because we have such a wide portfolio with a lot of heritage to offer.
It also allows us to go to new channels like e-commerce, but also shelf bars and key accounts that can cover bigger regions for the future. So we are seeding and expanding quite some new brands as we speak. We expect some of them will become quite successful because many of them are successful internationally. And it's good to know as well that the Craft and Specialties portfolio more than doubled its revenue versus last year, so we're off to a good start there. So thank you for your questions, Melody.
Our next question is Lynn Wu from Bank of America Securities.
Thanks a lot, Jan and Ignacio, for the presentation, and congratulations on the strong first quarter results. I have 2 questions. First is about price hikes in China. I understand that we commented before that we would take our own pace in terms of price increase and may not necessarily follow competitors' actions. But just wanted to understand a bit more here. In late March, CRB mentioned they might consider nationwide price hikes in the second half if cost pressure persists and competitive conditions allow.
We also see recent channel feedback suggest some sporadic price hikes happening in the industry so far this year. So I wonder what is your latest view or thoughts on that? And what's the outlook for our own price strategy for the rest of the year?
And the second question is on cost. I wonder how our purchasing costs looking year-to-date for major raw materials and packaging materials, especially glass, aluminum and paper. With the hedging program we have in place, how much cost pressure might we see reflected in our unit cost as well as gross margin this year and possibly in 2022? That's my question.
Thank you, Lynn. Thank you for your questions. Let me take the first one on price increase, and then I'll ask Iggy to cover the second one on the raw materials.
So on price, first to say, we never comment about our competitors' with respect them, but we don't really comment on their actions. If you look at our business, when you look at speed growth, obviously, mix and premiumization is the key driver, and we expect to remain the key driver for many years to come ASP for growth. And as mentioned before, we've seen a very strong trend.
And we also expect that both Super Premium and Premium portfolio has delivered well in the first quarter and has a lot of momentum already since May last year, we've seen very good progress on our portfolio.
Specifically to your question on the price increase strategy, I know it's kind of a whole topic these days. So let me maybe shed a little bit more light on what we've done because that's indeed something that we typically don't communicate very largely on. But we have actually successfully taken a price increase on Budweiser, was about 50% of CPI. And we actually also just took last month a national price increase on all of our core and value brands on the 1st of April, which was at 100% of CPI. And let's say, CPI is roughly 1.6% in China according to our estimates.
So we actually have been able to take price. And we do think, as we mentioned before, mix is more important. Premiumization is more important for our P&L and the ASP shape. At the same time, I always mention that we do take price on a tactical basis, sometimes nationally, sometimes regionally, where we see opportunities. And we saw the opportunity on Budweiser at half CPI some months ago, and we've recently taken a national price at full CPI for all of our core and value brands last month.
So we're not planning to give a lot of guidance on future price increases as we never do. But I thought it was important to share given you had a very specific question on that.
On the raw materials, let me hand over to Iggy to talk a little bit more about that.
Thank you, Jan. With regards to raw materials, well, commodity prices, first and foremost, have increased in several categories, among them aluminum, paper and steel. However, we have various methods in place to mitigate cost-related risks, including the following initiatives.
We follow a hedging policy, which we've discussed previously. We hedged the raw materials where possible, approximately a year in advance to give us some certainty from an operational perspective. In addition, of course, we work with our teams internally to find additional efficiencies to offset some of these headwinds. However, of course, it's too early to say at this point if we can fully offset the headwinds.
Leveraging the global scale, obviously, of AB InBev, we have the flexibility to adjust their sourcing options as needed as well. For example, we sourced barley from various locations, including Canada, Europe, Argentina and even locally stores as well. We have the flexibility to adjust that source based on requirements.
We also continue to look for opportunities -- cost opportunities in terms of things such as recycled packaging. We also extend, obviously, the work that we do to the rest of the supply chain, so to our suppliers as well to help them improve their efficiencies. And when you group these things together, there are some of the initiatives that we look to use to offset cost pressures, not only in 2021, but also moving forward.
Our next question is Lillian Lou from Morgan Stanley.
I have 2 questions on the other markets. First, on South Korea, how are we seeing the COVID-19 impact so far in April and May? And also we -- in first Q, we are these good market share gain supported by the new product packaging and marketing investments. So how do we see the margin trend with all these initiatives start to bear fruit? Any consideration of price movement in Korea because my understanding is in Korea, the price mechanism kind of every few years, we have some price increase based on the tax, et cetera. So any action we're going to take based on past years' experience?
And the second question is on India and ASEAN countries. In India, we all know seems kind of getting a bit worse recently. How are we going to see the business trend and also potential loss in this country? And also in Vietnam or other ASEAN country, what kind of growth strategy is there?
Great. Thank you, Lillian. Good afternoon. Thank you for your questions. On Korea, you're right, the COVID situation remains quite fluid. When you look at South Korea, there is a difference between 2 regions, right? One is, let's say, the greater sol regions. There, the level of restrictions is still at level 2.0. And as you probably know, South Korea government handles up to 3 kind of restriction levels. Outside of Seoul and surrounding the rest of Korea is at level 1.5 for the moment.
What does it mean practically, right, on the sales channels means that the restaurants are open, but they need to be closed by 10:00 p.m.? It means that private gatherings are limited to maximum 4 people. So any gatherings of 5 and more are restrictive across South Korea. And when you look at the big cities like Seoul and Busan, the top 3 cities, bars and nightlife is also closed for the moment.
So when you look in that context of restrictions, our volume declined by low single digits despite the COVID with restrictions. You're right that we estimate that we grew market share in both the in-home and the on-premise channel, which, as you remember, was already the case in the last quarter in Q4. However, in the first quarter this year, we grew so much that actually despite the channel headwinds, the channel mix headwind of COVID because as you imagine, on-premise goes down, and we have an average market share in on-premise and in-home and in-home increases volume.
So as a result, there is pressure on our share as long as the sales channel restrictions exist. So in Q1, our growth in each individual channel in terms of market share was actually so strong that it more than offsets the channel headwinds, the channel mix headwinds. So we also grew overall market share.
Interesting to know as well that we gained significant share in the Korean restaurant channel, which you might remember was one of the channels where Cass is still very strong. And we actually see an increasing momentum of Cass since last year, driven by the very successful commercial actions that a team in South Korea took.
And we are committed to further strengthen our share position and to build future growth engine in South Korea, both on costs, but also by a strong innovation pipeline. So on Cass, of course, we launched the all-new Cass campaign with a new and a transparent bottle, and has been extremely well received by consumers in South Korea that happened in the month of April, right, since last month.
And then Hallmark is our what we call a classic lager proposition. So Cass is an easy drinking lager. Hallmark is a classic lager proposition, is very differentiated from any other brand. Not only is it a green bottle, but the recipe is using domestic high-quality South Korean rice. And actually, I mean, the concept course very, very well with consumers.
And I'm glad to say that since launch, Hallmark already became the third biggest brand in Korean restaurants within 1 month after its launch. When you look at the in-home channels, it's almost a 1.5 share -- market share already in-home. So very fast growth as well, only after some weeks in the markets. So really with Hallmark, the ambition is to represent the K-Lager like K-Pop in South Korea. Hallmark is positioned to be the K-Lager because the recipe and the whole concept is actually developed specifically for Korean taste together with Korean consumers.
So that's kind of the innovation agenda. We have more innovations in the Premium segments. So with Hoegaarden, we launched Hoegaarden Botanic. We have a lot of innovations in the Premium segment as well, but these are kind of the main highlights for South Korea.
Maybe to your question on price increase, you're right that historically, South Korea has been a market where price increases happened relatively infrequently, right, every 3 or 4 years essentially catching up to inflation. The -- we have some news to share, I guess, in that.
Just a reminder that last year, the excise system change in South Korea. And so since this year, actually, last year, the government announced -- the regulator announced that on a yearly basis, the excise would increase together with the CPI, right, what we call the CPI excise adjustment system. And so that happens on the 1st of March for the first time this year because it was a 1-year anniversary that the new regulation came in place.
So what we decided to do is in connection with excise tax increase, we increased our prices for certain SKUs. So that on average, we would also have CPI adjustments on our price list that is in line with the CPI increase, which on the numbers, it is not very significant because the inflation in South Korea was actually only 0.5%. And we made it this CPI adjustment effective starting on the 1st of April, so also last month, right, 1st of April.
However, what is more important, I think, for our business is that it does give a different way of doing price adjustments in South Korea because based on the latest government discussions, we expect this excise tax to be increased on an annual basis based on CPI in South Korea. So we believe it is important to establish a routine process that basically has a price adjustment in connection with the annual tax increase linked with CPI on a yearly basis.
So -- and next to that, again, we don't comment on competitor moves. We just note that recently in the media, we saw that 1 of our key competitors in South Korea has announced a price adjustment starting from May So basically this week. So that kind of covers the question on South Korea, I believe, Lillian.
Then I move to India and then maybe a couple of works on Southeast Asia. But on India, obviously, India is in a very difficult spot from a health perspective, right? So there is a second wave that is quite a lot bigger than the first wave. And there is record highly daily new cases being recorded in India, unfortunately. And obviously, the health and safety of our colleagues continues to be our top priority in India. And as you probably know, we do have very strong safety protocols and procedures in all our breweries to make sure that our colleagues are healthy and safe.
And I mean, we are very proud of our colleagues in India because they show a lot of resilience amid all the adversity for -- that is happening there since 1 year and especially in the recent couple of months.
We have seen, if you look at the sales side of this, that certain states have started applying curfews reacting to the increase in COVID-19 impacts. There is a certain level of impact on consumer demand, partly also because there are -- there was a level of COVID, like the call in India, essentially excise increases under the shape of COVID, which is temporary in a few states.
However, we are encouraged because we have seen that some states have rolled back the COVID successfully. Some others have also reduced taxes on beer, which we applaud because we believe it is important to differentiate the tax levels between beer and hard spirits to encourage moderation.
And you would have noticed in our press release that even in the difficult situation in India, the team has been able to achieve double-digit growth in both volume and revenue in the first quarter and actually driven by high double-digit growth of Premium, Super Premium and Non-alcohol. So actually, all the high-growth areas were in high double-digit growth.
If you look forward, Lillian, it's difficult to predict right for the future quarters we look like. It remains very fluid, depending on the COVID situation. We all hope it's going to improve quickly. Of course, in the short run, we are lapping comps that are very low, right, because last year, this time, in the whole month of April was essentially a full lockdown last year. But of course, there is a significant impact to be expected there, but it's very difficult to predict how it will compare.
So obviously, we manage our business with a strict financial discipline as always. And the teams have been adjusting the production levels. They've been reallocating resources depending on the consumer demand trends. And I think with India, it's very important to say that it's important to take a long-term perspective on India. Even if in the short run, Q1 was double digits in the next couple of quarters, it's more fluid. It's more difficult to predict exactly how this will play out. And we're all hopeful and we support a team to get through these difficult periods, but we remain very optimistic on the long run potential of India as a market, right?
If you look at the demographic advantage, there's not many countries with 1.3 billion consumers and with an age pyramid that is very, very much set for growth in terms of future consumption. We see growing prosperity in the next number of years in India. And we see very strong premiumization trends, which will support our business because, as you know, we are a market leader in the premium segment in India.
And then maybe just a couple of words on your question on Southeast Asia, right? We don't often talk that much detail on Southeast Asia. But of course, it remains a very attractive region for us. And we see a lot of growth opportunity and premiumization opportunity there. Of course, in the short run, also Southeast Asia has been impacted by COVID-19 and related restrictions and really in very different degrees, depending on the market that we talk about [Technical Difficulty] some sporadic lockdowns and local lockdowns in all our key markets there in both Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
And these 3 markets are really the top 3 markets for us in the region in the first quarter. But I mean, I'm pleased to say that our team was able, even in these difficult circumstances, to realize strong double-digit growth in each of these 3 key markets in terms of volume and revenue.
Vietnam, of course, remains very attractive market with a high share of growth -- share of product beer, strong potential for premiumization in the future. And we have a high-end company business model there, which has achieved a lot of success on Budweiser in the last 5 years and continues to be very successful. And we have recently been putting more focus on super premium brands, especially Hoegaarden and Corona, which we also believe has a lot of potential. We just recently launched Hoegaarden Peach in Thailand and is doing very, very well with a great distribution support of our customers, and we're very optimistic in general about these markets with our Premium, Super Premium portfolios.
So I hope that covers your different questions on the other markets, Lillian, thank you for your questions.
The next question is Lincoln Kong from Goldman Sachs.
So I have 2 questions related to China. So first one is on the Premium segment. So as we enter the second quarter approach the summer peak season, how are we seeing the growth trend, especially in the Premium, Super Premium segment so far? And what our plan for upcoming in terms of the commercial activity? And how do we think to balance the top line growth versus the model trend, given the higher commercial higher campaign? Have we noticed any significant or more proactive activity from our peers in the Premium segment so far? So that's the first one.
And second one is on the ASP and the margin. I know in the first quarter, we had a pretty solid ASP growth, 4.3%. And so, given that the continued product mix upgrade and, I think Jan, you mentioned about some of the partial like recently, so do we see scope for even higher say, mid- to high single-digit ASP growth for the rest of the year? And when we're thinking for the -- on a full year basis in terms of margin, sort of the China EBITDA margin more comparable versus 2019 level? I know in -- in the first quarter, we did that. Should we think 2019 is a profit benchmark when we thinking the EBITDA margin for this year?
Great. Thank you, Lincoln and good afternoon. Thank you for your questions. Let me maybe take the first one, and then I'll ask Iggy to jump in for the question on ASP and expectations. So I would say on the first one on the premium segment and then the linked commercial investments. Obviously, we don't really give exact guidance on the future spending. But I should say that, of course, we are committed to invest in line with our growth ambitions. And as you know, we are ambitious.
What I'd like to say is that we see strong momentum in our business since May last year, right? This is not just a first quarter of 2021 event that we see here. We've seen increasing momentum in our business really since May last year. And even in June, as you remember, last year, we achieved our high single month volume ever in China. So we've seen a lot of momentum continued, and we are very excited that the momentum continues to grow in the first quarter of this year.
When you look at the commercial investment that relates to that, actually, when you look at China specifically, our sales and marketing first quarter spend for investments of course, has been higher than last year linked to the increased net revenue and increased volume. But if you express it as a percentage of net revenue, it is actually in line with the 2018 and 2019 first quarter spend levels as a percentage of net revenue.
So we are achieving these growth levels with consistent levels of investments as a percentage of net revenue. Of course, the first quarter last year was actually higher than the historical level, but it was mostly driven by the rapid decline in net revenue due to the COVID restrictions and the subsequent closures of the sales channel. So when you look at China specifically, our spend as a percentage of net revenue was actually lower than last year and was in line with 2018 and 2019 spend levels.
So on top of that, obviously, when you look to the future, we're always committed to finding new ways in the cost connect win cycle that we can actually reduce the indirect costs and the nonworking money so we can reinvest more in the working money and the commercial plans, and so we continue to grow in the future.
When you look at our plans for the summer, I think the team is very excited. So I think they feel there is a lot of momentum. They are very positive. They're very committed and engaged and really on premiumization, we just had our national sales convention a couple of weeks ago with our key wholesalers, present and all of our sales teams. And there's a lot of excitement in the room. People feel that we are growing quickly. Premiumization is very relevant in China. There was a very strong positive reaction to the distribution agreements that we signed on adjacencies and people understand how we're building the portfolio to already prepare for the next wave of premiumization.
And also in Craft and Specialties, if you look at our portfolio where we're bringing to the market, we have a very strong portfolio in the whole premiumization strategy. Combined that with the commercial expansion opportunities that we see and then further digitization of our business to find new ways to grow and leverage technology to accelerate -- to continue to accelerate our growth, I think there's a lot of excitement in the business for the summer and beyond Lincoln.
And maybe for the ASP specific question, I'll ask Iggy to jump in here.
Thank you, Jan. Thanks, Lincoln, for the question. So while we don't provide guidance on the ASP and EBITDA specifically. The underlying drivers will continue to be the sustainable top line growth that we've been discussing. Obviously, as we mentioned during the IPO, premiumization remains the key driver or was the key driver of our margin expansion historically and will remain as such. We believe that the trend across the region remains intact. It hasn't changed, and we continue to invest in and lead both the Premium and Super Premium segments in many markets of Asia Pacific.
We also invest obviously in the market to further accelerate the premiumization trends that we see there. We achieved a strong top line and bottom line growth in the first quarter of 2021, and that reflected the significant industry recovery we discussed previously in China as well as successful execution of that premiumization strategy across the key markets.
If I look specifically at last year's performance, China has had a strong recovery from May onwards, and we achieved the highest monthly volumes ever in June. Even as we will be facing this stronger comparable, we're encouraged by the underlying momentum, the underlying trends that we have built since last year in May.
So we continue to see obviously short-term uncertainties in South Korea and India, but we're confident in our commercial plans and innovations executed in the market. And we will continue to focus on the premiumization strategy both through innovation in the beer category and by seeding future growth opportunities beyond it, as we mentioned in the adjacencies portfolio. While we accelerate the digital transformation of our customer and consumer touch points, which also help in this way.
So thank you, Lincoln, for your questions. I hope we answered them.
We have some more questions on the webcast. I will now pass it to management. Thank you.
Okay. Let me check what question we have on the webcast here. Thank you, Aaron. So first question is, could you share more colors on your digitalization initiatives?
So yes, maybe on that one, I think last time we shared about the consumer digitization strategy we have. So I think in the last quarter, the full year results, we talked about the space being an initiative that is essentially there to increase -- to build and increase loyalty with our consumers and capturing first-party consumer data so that we can segment our consumer base and target more relevant marketing messages to them and also test our innovations with our specific consumer groups.
And last time in the report, we mentioned that we were at 13 million first-party consumer data points in the -- towards the end of last year. And what I can share is that during the CNY campaign we increased that number further to over 15 million -- 1-5 million Budweiser consumers just for the Budweiser brand, not for any of the other brands by the end of the first quarter, so just as an update.
On top of that, I think what goes together with this is our DropLine initiatives, which we have put in place. DropLine is our internal marketing agency. We put it in place about 1.5 years ago, and we see a lot of success with that strategy. We see that the team -- the DropLine team in-house is able to really connect very well with our brand managers and marketing colleagues, so that they can be very much on the game and ready to create digital content is relevant for our consumers and the different consumer segments. So -- and very close to the trends. So we've seen a much more agile and kind of effective way for our marketing campaigns.
And I think what we shared in the press release for the first time because we like to share initiatives after we launched them. We shared the B2B platform that we just launched very recently a couple of weeks ago, which is -- which we call BEES. And really the B2B is going not only through the outlets, it actually goes through the wholesaler through the outlet owners. So it really helps us improve the operational efficiency, not only for the outlet owners but also the wholesaler partners which can help them from a cash flow perspective, but also how to run trade activities, where to invest, how to improve ROI.
And we expect in the future to also use these insights for top line growth because as we see which products work in which customer types, we can suggest certain assortment listings. We can drive top line growth together with our customers by putting the right investments in the right outlets.
So already a couple of weeks in the launch, we have more than 4,000 outlets have signed up and that are now transacting in this platform. So we are very confident. We actually in-sourced our tech engineers to develop this platform. So it's an in-house platform, which probably shows you how seriously we take digital transformation because we really believe that having this capability in-house allows us to be at the right service level for our wholesaler partners and outlets for the future and to develop this platform as we see new opportunities arise in the future. So that's kind of the feedback on digital.
And I'm just getting one last question. I guess we have time for a last question as well on ESG, let me read it out. So you have released a new ESG report. What are the key improvements you did and which pillars will be your key focuses going forward?
So thank you for that question as well. So maybe a couple of highlights that I can bring. So we brought out our second ESG report recently, and we also did a webcast, which basically adopted the new Hong Kong Exchange ESG guidelines 1 year early versus regulation.
You can see on our website that in that report, we actually disclosed historical data for 3 years back. We also break down a number of things that are, I think, very interesting insights on greenhouse gas emissions. We break them down in detail. We also broke down our employment numbers by gender, by age, by region. So there's a lot of interesting information in there.
We also added new content that are interesting for some of our investors and rating agencies that shared with us more information they would like to see. So we've quite flexibly adapted our ESG report to represent that. And obviously, I think everybody knows our commitments on sustainability that I highlighted already, I think, of course, we continue to work on water, on circular packaging and on smart agriculture.
And then very recently, we were able to also announce on climate action that we now have 3 breweries in RE100 with 100% renewable energy. And we expect to do more announcements in the future on sustainability, specifically, but also, of course, on the social and the governance angles of ESG.
So the team is very motivated by that. I see a lot of people really embrace it and come with the new ways to really respond to ESG. So that's it for the questions.
Back to you, Aaron.
This concludes our Q&A session today. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Jan Craps for the closing remarks.
Thank you, Aaron. We are very excited about the increasing momentum we are seeing in our business since May last year. The fundamental strengths of our company have positioned us well for a solid recovery in 2021.
Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on our premiumization strategy, both through innovation in the beer category and beyond it, while we accelerate digital transformation and expansion strategy. With our strong foundation and expanding portfolio, we are confident about our strategy to drive sustainable, high-quality growth.
Thank you very much. Stay safe and well. See you next time.
This concludes today's results call. Please disconnect your line. Thank you, and goodbye.