Monday’s opening price dip for Heineken was over 7% as the beer giant’s first-half earnings growth disappointed forecasts.

The shares of the firm was down 7.9% at 12:18 PM London time.

Operating profit grew organically by 12.5%, less than the 13.2% company-compiled average estimate.

Beer sales increased by just 2.1% compared to an estimated 3.4% growth.

Heineken’s net loss of 95 million euros ($103 million) was mostly caused by an 874 million euro non-cash impairment of its interest in the Chinese brewing company CR Beer. Heineken stated that rather than being concerned about the Chinese company’s operational performance, the write-down was caused by the drop in CR Beer’s share price due to worries about Chinese consumer demand.

Dolf van den Brink, CEO of Heineken, stated on Monday, “We are quite pleased with a solid performance in the first half.” He described volume growth as “balanced and broad-based across our global footprint,” with a 5% rise in premium products.

Heineken updated its operating profit organic growth outlook for the year to a range of 4% to 8%, which was much anticipated by experts. Prior to this, the company’s projections has indicated low to high single-digit growth.

In a report published on Monday, Barclays analysts stated, “Heineken gathered momentum following optimistic comments at a recent conference leading the market (and ourselves) to improve estimates.”

“However, these results missed forecasts, suggesting there was a gap between the company’s messaging and analyst expectations. This needs to close.”

The biggest disappointment came from Europe, where profit growth was only 0.2% as opposed to an expected 15.1%, mostly as a result of higher advertising expenditures in a cutthroat market, according to Barclays.

Heineken reported that sales of low- and no-alcohol beers have “consolidated leadership,” with Heineken 0.0, a no-alcohol beer, seeing a 14% increase. Double-digit increase in the category was observed in markets such as Brazil, Egypt, Vietnam, and the United Kingdom.

On Monday, Van den Brink stated that the category was becoming “more and more important” to the business, especially Heineken 0.0.

According to market research, the growth of low- and no-alcohol products—including beer—is expected to significantly outstrip that of the alcohol sector as a whole in the years to come. As a result, both established companies and newcomers should focus on this market.

Additionally, Van den Brink stated that the corporation was no longer under as much pressure from input costs.

“Compared to previous year, input costs were significantly lower in Europe and the Americas, enabling us to accept significantly lower prices. Rebalancing our revenue growth to both volume and price growth is crucial, he told CNBC.

(Adapted from CNBC.com)