To look solely at stock charts, one would think status quo in the energy drink segment has returned.
Monster Beverage shares are up 20% so far in 2025 and 23% over the past twelve months. That’s a strong performance in an environment with a lot of volatility, concerns around tariffs, and still-lingering inflation. It’s all the more impressive given how much Monster shares already had accomplished: as CNBC noted, as of February 2024, the stock was literally the best in the entire market over the previous three decades. An initial $1,000 investment over that period would have turned into $2 million.
Meanwhile, Monster’s clearest new rival, Celsius, has seen its stock soar 56% so far in 2025 –but those gains are simply a bounce off the bottom. Shares are still down 37% over the last year, and were halved across 2024.
Pepsi stock hit a five-year low last month; the fact that its namesake brand has fallen behind Dr. Pepper is obviously the biggest factor (along with softer performance in snacks), but its energy drink business (including a partnership with Celsius) isn’t helping. Even GURU Organic Energy, a Canadian microcap (the company is worth about $42 million), has seen its stock drop 16% over the last year.
Celsius Gains Ground While Others Stall
It would appear the energy drinks category, as a whole, is fine.
Monster stock is up and while Red Bull is privately held, it does release some financial information. That company said that unit sales grew 4.4% in 2024, with revenue growing two points faster to 11.2 billion euros (about $13 billion at current exchange rates). That performance represents a deceleration – it’s the company’s worst growth rate since 2020 – but, again, in a difficult environment it hardly suggests much in the way of market share loss.
But in this case the charts don’t tell the whole story.
There’s been more weakness in the energy drink category than stock prices (and even industry data) might suggest.
Notably, Monster’s revenue may actually be going in the wrong direction. Revenue in the Monster Energy Drinks segment declined nearly 2% year-over-year in the first quarter of this year. For full year 2024, the segment grew 3% – but it also benefited from an extra five months of Bang Energy, which was acquired at the end of July 2023. Third-party data cited on Monster’s own earnings calls also show a modest erosion in market share.
Celsius seems to be taking at least some of that share, as is Alani Nu, which Celsius acquired earlier this year. Combined, the two companies are tracking toward 16% share, per Circana data for the first quarter of this year. But those share gains alone haven’t offset category weakness: Celsius sales were down 7% year-over-year in Q1, the second straight quarter of decline. Changes at Pepsi, the company’s key distributor, have been a factor; sales at retail haven’t been as soft as Celsius’s reported figures suggest.
What’s Next for the Energy Drink Sector?
But Celsius, too, suffered from a category slowdown, particularly during the middle of last year. In late May, Nielsen data showed a sudden and surprising deceleration across the space, including for Celsius; executives admitted they weren’t sure exactly why sales at retail had become so soft.
Inflation, broader consumer concerns and even the weather were cited as potential culprits; the macroeconomic explanation was supported by an obvious and severe decline in the convenience channel. Regardless, the lack of clarity worried investors. CELH fell by one-third in two weeks, and by February was down 75% from its peak.
Since early April, however, both the stock prices and the scanner data have improved. Concerns about the impact of tariffs and the broader economy have faded, leading to hopes that Monster, Celsius, and the entire space are returning to the impressive growth that made Monster the market’s best stock.
But the experience of the past year shows that consumer and investor attitudes can change in a hurry.
Right now, the market thinks that recent performance was just a modest patch of softness for a historically strong sector. Should weakness return, however, real questions about the energy drink category’s long-term health no doubt will return.
Vince Martin is an analyst and author whose work has appeared on multiple financial industry websites for more than a decade; he’s currently the lead writer for Wall Street & Main. He has no positions in any companies mentioned.
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