Anora: Main competitor Viva Wine had a somewhat subdued Q2, but still stronger than Anora

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 8/29/2025 at 7:20 am EEST.

Viva Wine, the main competitor of Anora's Wine segment, announced its Q2 result yesterday. Viva's revenue declined slightly in the Nordics, and it exceptionally lost a small amount of market share. Due to the acquisition and changes in reporting, the profitability of the Nordic countries is no longer directly visible in Viva's reported figures. Compared to Anora’s Wine segment, Viva’s performance has been better for a longer time and Viva's revenue developed slightly better in Q2 as well, with clearly better profitability than Anora's Wine segment.

Cool weather and subdued consumer sentiment weighed on sales

Viva Wine acquired a company called Delta Wines from the Netherlands during Q2. As a result, from Q2 onwards, it will report Delta and the former Nordics segment as a single B2B segment. Due to this change, comparability with Anora's Wine segment will decrease as Viva's market areas expand into Central Europe with the acquisition of Delta, and Delta's margin profile is slightly lower than Viva's Nordic business.

Despite Easter falling in April, cool weather and weak consumer demand pushed volumes down in the Nordic monopoly markets (Finland, Sweden, Norway). Viva’s market share uncharacteristically declined slightly (0.3 pp) year-on-year, which the company explained by an exceptionally strong comparison period when competitors faced supply issues. The acquisition of Delta Wines boosted the B2B segment’s growth to 25%, but Viva also achieved 1% organic growth. This was clearly a better performance than the 9% decline in Anora's Wine segment.

The recent acquisition and change in reporting obscure the comparability of profitability to Anora

Viva's B2B segment's relative profitability declined from the comparison period due to the consolidation of Delta Wines, which has a lower margin. The company commented that the gross margin in the Nordics improved by around 0.5 percentage points from the comparison period, while Anora's slightly declined. On the other hand, Viva's increased fixed costs likely pushed the EBITA margin lower in the Nordics as well, but the company did not disclose this. Viva's B2B segment's adjusted EBITA margin was 7.5% (8.4% in the comparison period).

Anora's Wine segment's EBITDA margin development is considerably more volatile than Viva's, and in Q2, Anora's level was still weak (2.5%). Viva’s margin is still better than Anora’s even when looking at the last 12 months (see figures below).

While the timing of Easter and a cool early summer have somewhat skewed the quarterly figures this year, Viva commented that summer demand was overall fairly normal, supported by a strong July. The company also does not foresee significant changes in market trends for the rest of the year, meaning the market in Finland and Norway is expected to decline slightly, and in Sweden to be approximately at last year's level. This largely corresponds to the trends seen in the early part of the year. Anora expects the volumes in its main markets to be “relatively at the same level” compared to 2024. In our view, this requires a slight pick-up in the latter part of the year and is thus perhaps a slightly more optimistic view or at least tone than Viva's comments. The market is of course partly different, with Viva talking about wines and Anora of both wines and spirits and also including Denmark. In addition, Anora also expects its market shares to improve. Regarding the margin, Viva believes, as before, that its gross margin will remain strong, supported by the strengthened Swedish krona for the rest of the year. We also view this as positive for Anora's margins.

Anora vs. Viva Wine margin

12 months rolling margins