Cognac 2024

Wine Sales: Down 6% vs. last year, following a 7% decline the previous year.
Beer Sales: Also experiencing a slight decline.
Spirits Sales: -3% volume slight Value gains saved by RTD and Tequila.
Expectations for 2024-2028
Wine and Beer +1.6% Spirits 3.6% volume but value +9%
Vodka: Flat, with growth only in Tito’s, reaching $7.2 billion.
Tequila/Mezcal: Up 7.9% to $6.5 billion. Starting to flatten
Whiskey: Flat or slightly down but now 24% of sales are flavored
Cognac: 12 month rolling -13.3% ACS -985
RTDs: Growing rapidly at 26%. Continue to drive all growth
RTDs continue to drive industry volume growth, and we see pockets of both downtrading and premiumization in distilled spirits.
Sparkling Prosecco is a bright spot for the total sparkling wine category. Prosecco has grown in all states YTD, but was not able to offset losses from other sparkling wine sub-categories, such as Champagne

Cognac – performance remains subdued. Cognac volumes remained depressed (-7.4%) and promotional activity appears to continue, with Oct price/mix -3.0%. Hennessy (Oct -7.3% vs Sep -5.4%) continued to outperform Remy (-19.7% vs -21.5%), with the benefit of having reset price points on VS. Hennessy price/mix -4.7% vs Remy -0.5%.
CA -5.3% Fl -6.5% Tx -3.2%, NY -22% IL -12%

Suppliers

Hennessy -1.8%, Dusse -11%, Courvoisier -16%, Remy -34% Martell -28% 10 years growth consecutive
Remy Shares are down 50% for the year

Size trends

Channel

Total off is -7% Costco is up 12% Walmart is flat but independent is -13% total is -6%
On Premise is -15% independent -15% casinos -43%

The Big Picture

Consumer shift away from Category
More challenges in China due to economic downturn and high inventory
Not only losing share to Tequila but now to scotch
Cognac/Armagnac, by contrast, released the fewest new status products of all spirits categories in 2024, and has been steadily losing market share. In 2023 it was pushed into second place by Scotch for the first time

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