Chief Executive's statement
Left: Jean-François van Boxmeer
Chairman of the Executive Board/CEO
Right: René Hooft Graafland
Member of the Executive Board/CFO
2007 was an outstanding year. We executed our plans faster, more efficiently and with greater impact than ever before. Alongside this, we maintained our focus and insistence on performance and delivery. We will not be complacent though and will continue to focus on delivering what we have promised.
2007 was a very strong year for Heineken. We significantly exceeded the expectations set at the start of the year in terms of profit growth and we delivered on our ambitious cost-reduction targets. Along the way, we made good progress towards becoming an organisation in which performance and focus on consumer needs are the key drivers of our strategic agenda.
Our success is clearly reflected in the results we achieved against our key metrics:
- Organic growth in net profit (beia) up 22.6 per cent
- Organic revenue growth up 7.3 per cent
- Organic consolidated beer volume growth up 6.5 per cent
- Heineken® growth in the premium segment up 10 per cent.
This is a great achievement and I would like to thank our employees, and our trade and business partners for playing their part in this performance.