The latest estimates of the staggering losses suffered by Anheuser-Busch since April 1, the day the Dylan Mulvaney controversy exploded, put their loss in market value at about $27 billion by the end of May.
The company had a $134.55 billion value as of March 31 before it plunged to $107.44 billion by the end of May, according to Dow Jones Market Data Group. The company’s stock plummeted 19.98% from its high in March. That 20% drop enters the zone of a bear market. Bud Light sales revenues have dropped 25.7% for the week ending May 20 compared to the same week in 2022, Bump Williams Consulting estimated.
On April 1, Mulvaney, a man who identifies as a woman, posted a video to his 1.8 million followers on Instagram promoting his partnership with Bud Light. “This month I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood, and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it,” Mulvaney said.
By May 24, a report had estimated Anheuser-Busch InBev’s market value plunging $15.7. That estimate came from Investor’s Business Daily, which used a conversion to U.S. dollars using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future,” Jared Dinges, beverage analyst at JPMorgan Chase, said on May 23. “We believe a 12% to 13% volume decline on an annualized basis would be a reasonable assumption.”
“Shares [of Anheuser-Busch] have underperformed EU Beer peers by 15% since the start of April,” Dinges continued. “We believe this is due to U.S. uncertainty, as investor focus has shifted squarely to the potential impact from the Bud Light controversy. … We do not expect the lost sales to be recovered in fiscal year 2024.”
Anson Frericks, the former president of sales and distribution for Anheuser-Busch, had intimated that trouble lay ahead for the company, telling The Daily Wire he foresaw “a long, hot, dry summer for Anheuser-Busch.”
“I think that you’re going to see sales continue to be down because customers, it’s too easy for them to switch to other brands, and they’re seeing the impact of their results,” he continued. “If they want those customers back, they have an easy decision that they can make, which is saying, ‘We want Bud Light customers back, therefore Bud Light is not going to get involved with political issues moving forward.’ If not, they’re probably going to be in a worse position next year and their sales will continue to decline.”