Diageo PLC (LSE:DGE)<\/a> could report a smaller decline in third-quarter sales than most analysts are expecting, according to UBS and Citi, who see helpful\u00a0timing effects and stronger trading outside the US.<\/p>\nThe banks\u00a0expect organic sales to decline around 2% to 3%, compared with the consensus City forecast closer to 3-3.5%.<\/p>\n
The improvement is largely driven by phasing effects, including Easter, Chinese New Year and stock build ahead of football-related demand in Latin America, rather than a change in underlying trends.<\/p>\n
UBS said there is “upside risk” across most regions, particularly in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America, where growth is expected to offset continued weakness elsewhere.<\/p>\n
North America remains the main drag. UBS expects US spirits sales to fall by around 10% in the quarter, reflecting weaker demand and market share losses in tequila and whiskey.<\/p>\n
Citi said the absence of new negative developments should be seen as reassuring, although a sustained recovery in the US business is unlikely before the 2027 financial year.<\/p>\n
Both brokers expect Diageo to maintain its full-year guidance for organic sales of around -2% to -3% and broadly flat to low single-digit earnings growth.<\/p>\n
While the shares are seen as relatively cheap, analysts said a re-rating will depend on clearer signs of a turnaround in US spirits demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diageo preview: could quarterly sales beat expectations? Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock Diageo PLC (LSE:DGE) could report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21250],"tags":[4110,22719,1907,22282,22753],"class_list":["post-44868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-diageo","tag-diageo","tag-expectations","tag-latin-america","tag-organic-sales","tag-quarterly-sales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116615263248022062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Diageo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/783675b428df52516c939eb5d494ab03.jpeg\")
Diageo preview: could quarterly sales beat expectations? Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n