Transcript • May. 7, 2026 9:00 PM • Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST)
Transcript
May. 7, 2026 9:00 PM
Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST)
Rob: As we've shared openly, we continue to evaluate our financials, the consumer, the ability and the resiliency of the category and how it stands up under pricing. And thus far, we're very pleased with the pricing actions we took in late 2025. We believe that play is working. I don't think anybody anticipated some of the headwinds in diesel and freight costs like we've seen, but our play is working as we continue to evaluate what the category, how the category is performing, how the consumer is tolerating this, how retailers are reacting, and also package mix and channel mix. We will take everything you just spoke about and we're constantly monitoring it as how we assess what that looks like going forward. But we believe modest in the category showing the resiliency and modest inflation is working. It's continuing to deliver volume growth and revenue growth in line with our plans as well as pricing power. So we take all this into account. It's one of the variables we consider, and we will continue to do that moving forward.
Elton: Guy, have you got anything to add to EMEA? Thanks, Elton. I think our approach is very similar to Rob. We continue to monitor the opportunity to take price. Modest inflationary pricing is working. The category is healthy, and we're gaining share in the category. We're optimizing the growth in consumer demand for our products.
Hilton Schlossberg: Okay, thanks, Chris.
Conference Operator: And the next question will come from Dara Mosanen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Dara Mosanen: Hey, guys.
Conference Operator: Hey, guys.
Dara Mosanen: So I just wanted to touch on the innovation. You have such a robust innovation schedule this year, a number of which you mentioned today. I was just hoping you could review the performance of some of the key innovations so far year-to-date in both the U.S. as well as international markets, and also spend some time discussing the pipeline in the remainder of the year from an innovation standpoint.
Hilton Schlossberg: Thanks. Thanks, Dara. Historically, we generally had in innovation in the first couple of months of the year, and lately we had innovation in the fall as well. So this year, the innovation has been spread across many months. In fact, we have been in the rolling out storm this week, in fact, and red, white, and blue will go out. The America 250 Ultra will go out to a broader base as we speak beginning in May. It's been in very limited distribution before then. So it has been not specifically in the first couple of months a year, but it's been spread out over at least the first half. So Robert, I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that. FLIRT, we We launched in April, I believe, and so there we go. So, Rob, I don't know if you had anything to add to what I said.
Rob: You bet, Dara. The only thing I would add to that, Hilton gave a great summary there. The only thing I would add is we continue to use the strategy of innovation should drive our core business, and we're pleased with how our innovation is driving our monster brands. You're seeing we're branching out with female entry in flirt and you see our wellness entry in storm a repositioning of that so as we delve into some of these expansive areas with new usage occasions you'll continue to see that this staggering I I don't want to take a hundred percent credit for that because I didn't do it but the brilliant minds behind it staggered it because you see we did not need it to start the year because we had innovation carryover from the end of 2025 so the timing actually was perfect and now sets us up beautifully for a strong summer where we believe structural demand will be high.
Elton: From an EMEA and OSP perspective, I think we've seen a very strong start from innovation. Viking Berry in the juice line was our most successful innovation ever in the region, and it's been supported by Ultra Ruby Red and various innovations in other markets, and we still have the benefit of the fourth quarter of innovation of Lambda Noris Zero Sugar. But I think we've been very pleased. Innovation has been very strong, but it's only 45% of our growth and 55% is coming from our existing SKUs. The performance of ultra-white continues to impress. In Nielsen sales, ultra-white in the region grew over 50% in the quarter versus prior year.
Hilton Schlossberg: So what's important for us as a company is that innovation solidifies the core. So innovation helps our core business as well as growing sales through its own revenue sales. But it enhances and grows the core, which for us is very critical as we run our business with both our core and with innovations.
Conference Operator: Thank you. The next question will come from Michael Lavery from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Michael Lavery: Thank you. Good afternoon. Just was wondering if you could give us a little sense of the category outlook outside the U.S. Obviously very, very strong growth. Maybe a little sense of some of the drivers of the gains in maybe a little bit of a sense of how much its share gains versus category growth, seemingly a bit of both, but can you touch on some of what's driving that?
Hilton Schlossberg: So, you know, if you look at what's happening internationally, it's very similar to what's happening in the U.S. So what's driving category growth internationally is basically, you know, the same consumer acceptance of energy drinks. Increasing contributions to household penetration gains, its value proposition, it's an affordable luxury, innovation, the neat state of energy, and usage across more day part occasions. And it's something that's really common to what we see in the rest of the world as well. Increasing buy rates, driven in part by multi-packs, which we have in EMEA as well as in the U.S., and in other parts of the world. So what we're seeing is a category that's driven by image, value, proposition, and functionality. And the fact that energy drinks are becoming more mainstream as this category is developing.
Conference Operator: Thank you. The next question will be from Bonnie Herzog from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Bonnie Herzog: All right. Thank you. Hi, everyone. You know, you mentioned that you had some out-of-orbit production in Q1 due to increased demand. So, you know, honestly, just hoping for a little more color on what's driving this strong demand. I mean, was there any timing or pull forward of volume in Q1? I guess it doesn't seem like it given how strong April sales were, but just wanted to verify that. And then wondering if you're now offering back within your orbits or is there, you know, still some out-of-orbit production happening? Thank you.
Hilton Schlossberg: Back to operating within our orbits, Bonnie, and this is something that happened in the first quarter. Our situation is that we always have to satisfy demand. That's our number one priority. We don't want empty shelves. We don't want consumers disappointed. So it makes sense for us as the business grows and as it grows beyond what we had forecasted to ship outside of our regular orbits. And as you know, we have a great facility now in Norwalk and a great facility in Phoenix. And we're able to utilize those facilities to help with additional production where additional production is needed.
Conference Operator: Thank you. And the next question will be from Matthew Smith from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Matthew Smith: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to come back to some of the comments you've made around multi-packs. We're seeing quite strong growth in large format multi-packs in the U.S., outpacing some of the smaller multi-packs. And you recently talked about a change to your pack sizes in club. So I'm curious as to the opportunity you see with multi-packs, especially the larger size ones you mentioned, increased buy rate or incrementality to the category. Just any update on where you think that category stands today in terms of the club channel and the opportunity there? Thank you.
Hilton Schlossberg: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question because as the category becomes mainstream, which we're seeing now with the energy category as becoming more prolific, people are drinking energy drinks. There's a general greater acceptance for the product. The opportunity for multi-packs becomes larger. very evident and as you know we've launched a 12 pack variety pack and other pack sizes both in the club channel and in fact in some of our bigger accounts and that's all suggestive of the fact that you know, what goes into a household is really consumed and consumed at a larger and more substantial rate than if product was just consumed on a single basis. So we're really excited about the fact that customers have accepted multi-packs and, you know, we hope to do a lot more of that. So... We started many years ago with four packs. We gravitated to six and eight, and now we're supplying 12 packs. And, of course, the Club Tunnels has generally been 24 packs.
Conference Operator: Thank you. The next question will be from Rob Ottenstein from Evercore. Please go ahead.
Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. You know, it would appear... that your performance, obviously the sector is doing very well, but your relative performance seems to be accelerating. So I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about the drivers of that acceleration, whether it's increased investment, better innovation, better execution, more coolers, probably all of the above, but maybe just kind of step back and kind of pat yourself on the back a little bit here and kind of give credit where credit is due in terms of the key drivers to what looks like just accelerating relative performance over the last year and a half or so.
Hilton Schlossberg: Yeah, thanks, Robert. I think, you know, from our perspective, I think we've got a great playbook in Monster, and Monster's doing well. It's achieving share gains, and it's doing nicely. Where we have a lot of work to do is in our strategic brands and some of our peripheral brands like for example Bang, NARS and Full Throttle and we've got a real huge focus on those brands during the course of this year and beyond. And, you know, we've launched FLIRT, which I mentioned earlier. We really are quite pleased about. And the initial offtake seems to be good. You know, what we're carrying in the market on social media seems to be good. And so, you know, we're pleased with that. We're addressing the female energy category, which we wanted to do for some time. And, yeah. We, you know, Bang has been suffering a little bit, so we have, you know, we have a strong marketing program on relaunching Bang, and Storm really suffered, we believe, from its association with Rainstorm, because Rain is a performance energy product, and Storm, Rainstorm is addressing the wellness category, and I believe that And so do our customers believe that what we have now is a much better product group to address in the wellness category. And then, you know, on the other hand, we have affordable brands, Predator and Fury, which are doing well in Africa, Egypt, and Africa, Egypt, India. And so, you know, excited about that. the affordable brands because they are addressing a need as the world is comprised of a lot more individuals who live in emerging and developing markets. So the affordable energy brands are a big opportunity for us.
Conference Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back to Hilton Schlossberg for any closing remarks.
Hilton Schlossberg: So on behalf of Monster, I would like to thank everyone for their interest in the company. We are confident in the strength of our brands and the talent of our entire Monster family throughout the world. And I'm excited to be working with them and thank them all for their contributions today. particularly in this quarter, which was quite an incredible quarter. We believe in the company and our growth strategy and are committed to innovating, developing, and differentiating our brands and expanding the company both at home and abroad. We are proud of our relationship with the Coca-Cola system and the opportunity this presents to us, including in FSOP. We believe that we are well positioned in the beverage industry and are optimistic about the future of the company. Thank you so much for your attendance.
Conference Operator: And thank you, sir. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
