Sugar tax sours Kofola ČeskoSlovensko revenue forecast

Kofola ČeskoSlovensko is forecasting a full in annual sales, with the Czech drinks business pointing to the impact of a sugar tax in Slovakia.

The soft drinks producer expects to record a 4% decline in revenues this year, versus its previous forecast of growth of 1.5%.

Kofola ČeskoSlovensko's new guidance came after it reported a 7.5% fall in third-quarter revenues.

The business said "lower consumption" in the quarter had been "significantly influenced" by Slovakia's sugar tax on sweetened drinks and muted consumer sentiment in Czechia.

Kofola ČeskoSlovensko also cut its forecast for 2025 EBITDA, which the company now sees reaching Kč1.75bn ($83.8m). It had previously projected this metric to sit at Kč1.9bn.

CFO Martin Pisklák said: “We managed to offset the negative revenue trend in the CzechoSlovakia region through cost savings. EBITDA for the third quarter is therefore comparable with the results for the same period in 2024.

“At the turn of August and September, the revenue trend began to improve, which is why we published an outlook for the full-year 2025 result at Kč1.9bn. However, autumn and November revenues show that the negative trend unfortunately continues. We therefore need to revise the overall outlook to Kč1.75 bn.”

Kofola's third-quarter revenues declined 7.5% to Kč3.1bn. EBITDA in the period fell 1.1% to Kč727m.

The group saw declines across its business segments in its third quarter. Its 'CzechoSlovakia' business segment, the largest portion of its business, saw revenues decline 10% to Kč4.7bn. EBITDA within this segment also dropped 12.5% to Kč823m.

Revenues in its beer and ciders segment were down 10.3% in the quarter, mainly driven by "lower demand in central and eastern European countries", Kofola said.

Profit for the period in its third quarter still grew 5.4% to Kč391m. However in its first nine months of 2025, total profits dropped 18.9% to Kč528m.

Kofola's revenue dipped 3.6% in the nine-month period to Kč8.2bn. EBITDA dropped 11.8% at Kč1.4bn.

"Sugar tax sours Kofola ČeskoSlovensko revenue forecast" was originally created and published by Just Drinks, a GlobalData owned brand.

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