Nigerian Breweries Plc, on Wednesday reported a net profit decline of 21.3% for the first quarter of 2019, impacted by the new excise duty rate increase that came into effect in June. Net earnings fell to N8bn from N10.2bn earned in the same period in 2018.

Excise duty rate increased by 48.2% from the same period in the previous year thus shaving-off N8.1bn from sales revenue as compared to N5.5bn. Total Net Revenue grew by 3.3% to N82.3bn from N82.9bn in 2018.