Acknowledging that “AB InBev does a lot of things right, certainly – it’s done a good job marketing its brews around the world, for example, and maintaining a commanding position as a global producer,” Motley Fool analyst Eric Volkman said that after Friday’s lackluster earnings report, plus ABI’s own opinion on its near-term earnings outlook, “I just don’t see much of a future growth story here, so I wouldn’t be inclined to buy the stock.”
Much of ABI’s third quarter earnings problem – they were up, just not as much as analysts expected – and its near-term outlook was a result of China, where “sales have been lower than anticipated and are likely to remain so.”