Good day, and welcome to the Monster Beverage Company Virtual Investor Meeting. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Roger Pondel. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Monster Beverage Corporation's virtual investor update meeting. I'm Roger Pondel with PondelWilkinson, the company's investor relations representative. I hope this finds everyone healthy as we begin a new year. We miss seeing your faces and shaking hands. Before I introduce and turn the call over to Monster's co-chief executive officers, Hilton Schlosberg and Rodney Sacks, I wanna remind everyone that certain statements made in today's presentation may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities laws as amended regarding the expectations of management with respect to the company's future operating results and other future events, including revenues and profitability. The company cautions that these statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of the company's control, that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from the statements made. For a detailed discussion of risks that could affect operating results, please see the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Rodney Sacks and Hilton Schlosberg. Gentlemen, please go ahead. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much, Roger. On the first slide, I would like to just give everybody a snapshot on the all measured channels for the last 13 weeks. The category continues to be healthy and grow. What you will note from this slide is the effect of the increased prices that have been achieved generally in the beverage industry, including sparkling soft drinks and others who have continued to increase prices both last year and this year. I think the energy drink category has lagged a little. We've, as you know, increased prices on September 1, but the category has started to follow now. We do think that we'll start seeing some increase in sales due to the increased pricing as we go forward in 2023. The performance of the category and of Monster in particular in the last 13 weeks, you can see that Monster has continued to perform very well. Is up 10.6%. Our two supporting brands, NOS, Reign and Full Throttle, are basically also up. Full Throttle is marginally down or flat, but that we've seen some good, healthy growth for NOS and Reign. The next few slides are just graphics of the dollar share in measured channels over the past 13 weeks. In this case, for goes back for 24 months. The next is a slide of the unit share over a similar covering a similar period of 2 years in the category. If we turn to the convenience snapshot, you'll note that from in some of the past quarters, the convenience channel tended to lag. The all measured channels, there seems to be some catch up now, and Monster is continuing to grow. The company's growth is 10.4% in the last 13 weeks. In that category, Monster at 9.5%, and all of the other 3 supporting brands are in growth in the convenience category. On the 5-week, shorter measure for convenience, we are seeing a slight decrease, but very marginal. The category is up 9% and Monster is up 9.2% as a company, and the brand is at 8.1% with continued growth in NOS and Reign. If we turn to Amazon, which is an emerging channel, it's continuing to grow at 36% over last year. Monster's growth is at 55% and is continuing to lead the category sales in the Amazon section. 4 weeks numbers are very similar with Monster's growth at 62% and continuing to still be the leading brand in Amazon. Distribution. This is a slide we've traditionally provided annually. It's very similar to no real change from last year. Just to give you a summary of where we are now, Monster is now distributed in 142 countries and territories. Strategic brands are now distributed in 63 countries and territories. Reign is now distributed in 25 countries and territories. Affordable Energy, which is Predator and Fury, is now distributed in 34 countries. That, in the result, one or more of our brands are distributed in a total of 157 countries and territories worldwide. The next few slides, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on, it's just the picture of where the different brands are distributed around the world. The first slide is of strategic brands, existing markets. This next slide is of Reign, which gives you an indication of where it's being sold. The next slide is the Affordable Energy, which is Predator and Fury in those countries where we have some issues with using the Predator trademark. We sell the brand under the Fury trademark in those countries. The following slide now is the expansion markets for the targeted launches, both for Monster and Predator that we anticipate over the next year. You'll see that we recently launched Predator at the end of last year in Egypt, one of the bigger markets, and we are intending to launch Monster in Egypt within the next few months. Give you an updated snapshot on our brand positioning, our share. You can see from this snapshot, it's alphabetical. Our major markets and in almost every market, we've continued to gain share both for the Monster brand on its own and for our portfolio generally. We've continued to see good growth, particularly in some of our larger international markets, like Great Britain. This has been very encouraging, that we, you know, continue to be positive as to our future ability to continue to grow share, in many of our international markets. I think what's also interesting from the slide is that many of these markets, the energy category has been in existence longer than in the U.S. For example, you know, there are a number of markets, including Great Britain, you can see that there still is momentum in these markets despite the energy category being, you know, in existence much longer than we see here. Agreed. China, you know, this has still been a challenge. They've continued to have challenging economic conditions and issues with facing COVID, with lockdowns still existing in many of the cities and regions. As they're starting to open them up now, we are obviously hopeful that we'll be able to continue to expand our distribution and, you know, secure better shelf space. We are continuing to focus on our existing line. We probably will have one new SKU introduction this year. We've consolidated one or two other line extensions that we had in the past to try and, you know, consolidate and focus back on our core four products. The last of which we introduced, was Ultra Sunrise in 2022, and we're looking to introduce Ultra Paradise in 2023. As we continue to. This is a slide I think you've already seen in the last. Sorry, before you do that, Rodney, we should just mention that we're gearing up for a launch of Predator in China as well. 'Cause there is quite a big market for the affordable energy side, which is, you know, products that are much cheaper than ours, the, our Monster brand and also Red Bull's brand. There are opportunities and, you know, we're going to, you know, take those opportunities. Yeah. Agreed. That will probably be a launch, just to let you know, in a PET bottle, with Predator, and that will be later in the year as we gear up for that, as Hilton mentioned. Exactly. These are our continuing major sponsorships, that we follow and support. Our ambassadors have been very successful. We have a unbelievably strong roster of people who we sponsor and who endorse our brand and speak for the brand. You know, we're very proud of the relationship we have with all of these ongoing athletes. In 2020 We'll talk later. We'll talk later about the loss of Ken Block, who's really been part of this company and part of our whole affiliation and, you know, it's really sad with his passing. We'll have a tribute video later. We mentioned him on the slide on top ambassadors, 'cause in 2022 he certainly was. His videos will continue, you know, they just pretty impressive, and he was a very impressive and a great friend of the company's. Thanks. In 2022, we had a number of our athletes win their championships in their respective sports. Particularly, you know, important to us was Bagnaia who won the MotoGP World Championship. Eli Tomac, who won Supercross and Motocross, and Motocross of Nations. We're very successful in surfing and skateboarding, snowboarding and skiing at the Olympics. Brittany Force, who also won a Top Fuel competition this year. A very young athlete who's growing and will be. You'll get to know him a lot more as we go forward. We think, you know, he's got a fantastic future ahead of him, is Ty Gibbs, which is Coach Gibbs' grandson, who was racing in the Xfinity Series. This year will be going up to the Cup Series, the main NASCAR series. We will continue to sponsor Ty in that series. MMA, as you know, we've put a lot of resources behind UFC and Bellator. These sports are growing around the world. It's very much in the Monster DNA. We are continuing to support these sports and the athletes as well, a number of athletes in the UFC. This is just a slide just of MotoGP achievements because, in fact, in the last 3 years, our athletes have won the world championship, 3 years in a row. Joan Mir in 2020, Fabio Quartararo in 2021, and Francesco Bagnaia in 2022. Esports has continued to grow and become a more important part of our sporting and marketing platform. We continue to sponsor the major sporting events in esports and gaming, such as DreamHack, and also have, you know, substantial support for individual gaming teams and individual gamers and some of them that we've had relationships with for many, many years, like Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses. Music continues to be one of our strong platforms, and you saw some of the reference to some of the bands in the video. Social media, just to give you a further sort of insight, on Instagram, we have 8.2 million followers. On TikTok, 1.7 million. We have over 3 million YouTube subscribers, and over 25 million Facebook followers, and over 3 million Twitter followers. We continue to focus and be active in the social media space for the brand and all the brands for the effect of the company and for the company itself. Going back to sort of recap last year, our main U.S. programs, in the first trimester, we focused on innovation. In the second trimester, we had a retail promotion for all-access passes to certain key events that we sponsor. In the last trimester, we had a retail promotion for Apex Legends, which is a very big and enormously, you know, well followed game internationally. Going to. Turning to this year, in the first trimester, we have a major launch of our new Monster Energy Zero Sugar product. As you can see from the Zero Sugar product, it's very much an analog of our successful, original Monster. It's we've decided to launch it in a black can with a green claw, but with some distinguishing features because the case profile of this product is almost indistinguishable from our regular Monster. We believe this will broaden our core consumer base, that we've established over the last 20 years. Many of our consumers prefer, for whatever reason, to have a zero sugar product. In this way, we can. We believe we can continue to solidify our franchise of this, the unique Monster flavor that is something that stands on its own and has stood the test of time, and we can do so to provide consumers both with a full sugar and no sugar version of the product that is, that tastes the same. We are very excited about the prospects for this brand in the U.S., and we will start to roll it out internationally as well thereafter. In the second trimester, we have a big promotion linked to UFC, and we will have another gaming promotion, which was very successful at the end of last year for our third quarter trimester. In Europe, which is our second, you know, largest continent, we really promote in quarters, and this slide will just give you some of the flavor of the promotions that we will do implement in 2023. Again, you'll notice that we are relying on a lot of our international sponsorships to promote our brand internationally. We're able to leverage a number of our sponsorships such as UFC, et cetera, Party in Miami and et cetera, for Europe and our brand around the world. While we don't have a 2023 slide for the MEA programs, they'll continue to or we will continue to operate in quarters. The 1st quarter will be a desert adventure with Lewis Hamilton, again with one of our celebrities. 2nd quarter, a MotoGP experience. 3rd quarter will be a global UFC promotion, and the 4th quarter will be a video gaming promotion. We using all of our properties, as Rodney mentioned, in our retail promotions. Thanks. You know, Java Monster, as you all know, is a very strong brand within the Monster family. We're going to continue to promote that brand and put effort. The following slides I'll try and run through quickly. It's just showing the different marketing approaches that we are looking at implementing specifically with some of the brand families, as opposed to just promoting Monster, Green Monster Original on its own. We are looking at, you know, putting resources behind Java Monster, Ultra, to our juice sub-line. Rehab sub-line, which is also in our new packaging, has seen a resurgence and continued to grow, so we're seeing some good growth in Rehab. When we get to the new products, we'll show you the proposed line extensions that we have for innovation for Rehab as well. Reign, you know, has been continued to be a solid brand and performer for us. We are going to innovate with a line extension. This just gives you some of the partnerships and the for the brand and the positioning. The next slide will really show where our innovation is going for Reign. We are obviously introducing a new product, Tropical Storm, in 16-ounce cans in 2023, as well as a whole line in 12-ounce cans. The positioning is a little different. We think it's a little, you know, a little more neutral and not quite as aggressive in personality as the main Reign brand. We think it'll reach a broader demographic audience. We're launching this product line, Reign Storm, in 12-ounce cans in four flavors. We think that this will enable us to compete more directly in some of the performance category or what they would call clean energy or healthier perceived energy sort of categories, where you've got a number of new entrants that have entered this category over the past year or two. Innovation, which is, you know, one of our, the core pillars on which we continue to grow the brand and our sales. We have a terrific lineup of innovation in 2023. The first product of which is obviously the one we've just described, which is our Zero Sugar. In the Reserve line, we're going to come out with a new kiwi strawberry product. It's a flavor profile that hasn't really been built on in the energy category. We believe there is a good consumer profile for this product, that product flavor line. We will continue to expand our Ultra line, which is continuing to achieve, you know, really good growth. We have a great flavor in the Strawberry Dreams product. Java Monster, we're going to continue to expand with the café latte, just trying to get to that more traditional regular consumer of coffee products. Nitro is a sort of a sleeper line. We converted that line, as you remember, from extra strength in a 12-ounce can into a 16-ounce. We've seen some good distribution gains and some good sales growth on a per point basis on our Nitro line. It was a single SKU. It was tended to be a little lost on the shelf with 1 SKU. We're going to launch an additional SKU this year. It'll give the sort of sub-brand or sub-line a bigger presence on shelf. We are quite encouraged by the Nitro line. It gives us a point of difference. The texture of the liquid is different to regular energy drinks. Again, we always try and find a reason to have innovation and a point of difference to other products on the market. We're quite excited about Cosmic Peach. As I indicated earlier, Rehab, we're going to expand the tea base for that product line with a wild berry tea. Strategic brands, I won't spend as much time on. We have a really healthy innovation pipeline for our strategic brands around the world, in 2023. This slide really just is a slide so that you can refer to it in the future. You can have reference to the active countries where Affordable Energy, we're actually already distributed under our Predator brand and the future launches that we are planning for Predator and Fury. We should just mention the bottom of the slide, is reference to a brand called Prowler, which we have in our back pocket, if we cannot get registrations for either Predator or Fury in the markets in which, we will be launching. There will be markets that we potentially may not be able to use Predator and Fury, and, we have Prowler in our back pocket for that. Thanks. This is the existing lineup for Predator. You can see that, you know, we have a lot of flavors. In many countries, we are only just at the beginnings of the brand, and there are only a few SKUs in those countries. We have products already lined up and ready to be able to roll out in these countries as we continue to expand some of the existing markets and then, you know, start off with our original plus 1 or 2 SKUs in the newer markets. There is a mix. We don't have any specific requirement that you have to launch in a can before a bottle or PET. Some markets that have PET as their affordable choice of package for the affordable category, we've gone straight into PET in those markets again. We have both packages available for the different markets to meet consumers' requirements. These slides are just of our supporting brands in the U.S. NOS, their positioning. Again, I don't think we should spend a lot of time dwelling on them. Full Throttle. Relentless is one of our brands we have in the United Kingdom that's doing very well but it's focused in the United Kingdom. Burn, as you know, is a brand we acquired from Coke. It still continues to be important in many countries in Europe. Mother is focused on Australia and New Zealand, and the brand is continuing to perform very solidly in those markets. We continue to provide innovation for the brand. LIV+ is really focused in... on the healthier energy in New Zealand, which is a leading product there. Power Play is one of the brands that we acquired from Coke that we utilize in South Africa. It's interesting, in the South African market, we actually now have four brands. We have Monster, which is the leading brand in our portfolio. We have Play, we have Burn, and we have Predator. We have a very big portfolio, healthy portfolio in South Africa to address different consumers' needs in different market, different positioning in that market. Nalu has been a really a niche brand, but it's continued to be very strong in Belgium, and we're looking at the moment at potentially other markets in which we can try and extend the Nalu brand to. Yeah, I think what's important looking at these slides, is that each of our brands have their own identity and their own marketing targets and their own marketing strategy. As we look at the world and we look at the various product offerings we have, it's important for us to take, you know, what we do with Monster and separate what we do with these other brands so that they are complementary and they're not duplicative of the strategy for Monster. Thanks. The last slide is a few... Predator, which we've sort of gone over before, but this is the positioning with the continued association with Liverpool, which we're able to leverage in many, many countries throughout the world. Now turning to some new innovation. We're introducing The Beast Unleashed, which is our entry into the alcoholic beverage sector. This is going to be a 6% alcohol product, and we are just starting to roll it out this month, starting to make some deliveries. Then we will be rolling it out... it's not going to have an immediate national launch. We're going out in about a half a dozen states, and then we have a second wave towards the end of March, April, and then we'll have a third wave a couple of months after that. We are launching this brand in 16-ounce single cans. There are 3 flavors initially, which will be focused on the convenience and single-serve channels. We are also launching The Beast Unleashed in a 12-pack variety pack. There'll be 4 flavors. There's 1 additional flavor called Scary Berries in the variety pack. Depending on how we you know, as we continue to develop the brand, we'll probably launch the Scary Berries product in a 16 ounce as well. We're just at the moment focusing on getting shelf space for the 3 main SKUs and then a variety pack. The variety pack will also be sold in convenience, but that will be more focused on the, you know, mainstream grocery and, and bigger box store channels. The sort of promotion and support, we're gonna obviously put a lot of promotional support behind the Beast. We're gonna have some motorsports, we're gonna have digital support, and we're gonna have a number of key ambassadors and events to support the brand. Beast Unleashed is being, you know, managed separately from Monster. We're not, you know, utilizing the same sales team. It's completely separate. It's coming under the management of the CANarchy company. It's a separate, completely separate division in CANarchy, and it will be managed. We have some, you know, certain of our team from Monster have gone across and are heading up, the, this division, within CANarchy. We will continue to operate it, individually and separately. The distribution system, because it's alcohol, you will appreciate, will go through the beer distribution network. Many of the beer distributors are some of the existing distributors for the CANarchy brands. Others are, will be new beer distributors that we will be, you know, awarding the brand to. At the same time, in establishing this division, we are, you know, we want to have another way of going to market and to, get different brands that may not fit into the Monster Energy brand portfolio. It may not be suited while they're small and growing, you know, into the Coke system. It's a big system, and it's not really suited to taking on and developing and nursing small brands. We are gonna have a separate NA division in the CANarchy, under the CANarchy business division, which we're going to. Which is named Monarch Beverage Company. That company, or that division, will handle some of our brands that will go through an independent distributor network, principally, you know, of beer distributors. The first product that we've launched in that, we're about to launch in that division, and again, we've just run some production, and we're starting to look at deliveries on a phased basis, is our True Water product. We have True Water in a 19.2 ounce tall boy cans. We have it in a still and a sparkling variant. You know, we're very excited. We have singles, then we also have a 16-ounce multi-packs. We're going to launch that in two different sizes, depending on different markets. The 19-ounce is clearly designed for single serve, to go to the convenience channel, and the multi-pack will be more targeted and focused on the grocery and bigger box stores. Yeah. What we should mention is that this strategy and plan really has the blessing of The Coca-Cola Company. It's not being done against their wishes. It's been done together with them and with the objective, if these brands grow to a particular dimension, a particular size, that they will then move over into the Coca-Cola system. The next slide is just really a summary of the main brands, the existing brands of the CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective, which is the company and business that we acquired early in 2022. This is a full lineup. We'll go through some of the individual brand families. This is the Jai Alai brand family, Cigar City. Shows you the brand family, some of the sampling and programs that we have to support the brand, which includes supporting and marketing activities with the Tampa Bay Lightning in Tampa Bay. This is a brand that is based in Tampa, grew out of Tampa. The Dale's brand, which has been around for a long time in the craft business, is based in Colorado. We've realigned and repositioned the actual branding on the actual packaging. We think the brand is now sort of the family just, you know, looks better and is stronger. We have a pale ale, a double IPA, and we're also introducing a light lager now in this in the Dale's lineup, which has pretty extensive distribution also outside of Colorado. Wild Basin is the hard seltzer brand that we acquired with CANarchy. It has struggled a little bit, not different to, but probably a little more than some of the other seltzer brands who've struggled over the last 12-18 months. We have repositioned the brand. We've reformulated the flavors. We think we've got some good tasting product, better tasting products now. We've also redesigned the packaging and positioning. This is going to be, you know, a focus for the CANarchy craft brand and company during 2023. Hilton. We've got Paul DeChellis, who's back east. He's gonna jump in now and talk to us about our 2021 sustainability report. He's gonna talk about our ESG initiatives, and he's also gonna talk about our EDI initiatives. Paul, I hope you're there, and take it away. Thank you, Hilton. In 2022, we continued to make great strides in our ESG journey. We published our second annual sustainability report, which as you can see from this slide, not only highlighted our increased ESG efforts throughout the year, but also included commitments for the coming year, such as setting Scope 1 and Scope 2 reduction targets, and water related goal and policy by the end of 2023. Our ESG efforts are continuing to be recognized and have improved from just the last year, with the company's CDP score for climate change rising to a B-minus, and our subsidiary, AFF, earning a silver EcoVadis medal for its improved score. The company is also implementing a full solar project at certain of our locations. We have also continued to increase the opportunities for growth available through our equality, diversity, and inclusion program. In particular, we have focused and continue to focus on conducting ongoing ED&I assessments and analysis, and providing ED&I training to all company employees, from company executives to new employees. In addition, I also note that our EEO-1 report is now available on our corporate website. I'd like to now hand the call back to Hilton to speak about our recent philanthropic efforts. Yeah. Thanks, Paul. The company continues to address its social responsibility. We have a VP of philanthropy, and we heavily engaged in a number of initiatives. Some of them on the slide, I'm gonna ask you guys to, you know, to read them and maybe now or after the presentation. I'm not gonna go into them in great detail, but we have a focus on natural disaster support. We've always been a part of our support of the military. Continue to support responses around the globe. We did in 2021, we did in 2020, and we'll, you know, we continue to do those. Through the USO, we provided support to troops stationed in NATO allied countries and supporting the ongoing activities and actions in their regions. We also provide scholarships and fund various other charities. We work with our athlete ambassadors. A number of them have their own charities, and we work and support them as well. We have a cadre of charities that we support covering the military, our athletes and their charities, as I mentioned, first responders and education. Internationally, we became an official partner of the Invictus Games in 2022. We provided support. In fact, we funded the team Ukraine efforts in the Invictus Games. We also have a very strong focus on caring for our own when our own employees get into difficulties and experience, you know, disasters and challenges that affect their lives. We continuing with our employee match program and offering volunteer time off for our teams to go out and do volunteer work. Now I'm gonna ask Tom Kelly, our Chief Financial Officer, to wrap up the presentation and talk about the solid financial results that the company has and is achieving. Tom. Yes. This slide shows the company's solid financial results, including 30 consecutive years of increased sales since the acquisition of the Hansen Beverage business in 1992. Achieved $5.5 billion in net sales in 2021, up 20.5% over net sales of $4.6 billion in 2020. Achieved $1.4 billion in net income in 2021, down 2.3% from net income of $1.4 billion in 2020. Achieved $2.57 in diluted earnings per share in 2021, down 2.4% from diluted earnings per share of $2.64 in 2020. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2022, achieved $4.8 billion in net sales, up 16.6% over net sales of $4.1 billion for the same period in 2021. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2022, achieved $890 million in net income, down 15.7% from net income of $1.1 billion for the same period in 2021. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2022, achieved $1.66 in diluted earnings per share, down 15.6% from diluted earnings per share of $1.97 for the same period, 2021. Thanks, Tom. Rodney, I'm gonna turn it back to you because you wanted to talk a little bit about Ken Block. As, as you know, he passed away in the last probably two weeks ago through a ridiculous, really sad accident. We're gonna have also a short video, but Rodney, let me hand it back to you. Thanks. Thanks very much, Hilton. With Ken Block's tragic recent passing, the world lost a great human being and Monster lost a great athlete, ambassador, and friend. Ken was one of Monster's early premier athletes. For the past 15 years through his Gymkhana YouTube videos and other exploits, Monster was exposed to tens of millions of consumers annually in a credible and authentic manner, as opposed to traditional advertising that is generally seen as commercial and not authentic to consumers. Ken was cool, and his videos were cool. His amazing, dangerous feats will live on in the minds of consumers for many years to come. Ken was a gentleman and will be sorely missed by us all, as well as the entire extreme sporting world. In Ken's memory, we would like to share an extract from one of his Gymkhana videos, which represents and epitomizes Ken and his achievements. Thank you. There will now be a short break for those who wish to dial in for the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. We also ask that you please limit yourself to 1 question. While we wait for the roster to assemble, I will turn the call back briefly to Rodney, and we will then play the video. To view the video in full screen, simply click on the full screen link below the video play box. After, please hit escape on your keyboard to revert back to the regular screen mode. Rodney, please go ahead. Thank you. All right. We'll just show the video if we can. Thanks. One on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question will come from Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. On behalf of Dara. Good evening, everyone. First, you mentioned the slight slowdown in sales, particularly in the C-store channel for the five weeks versus the 13 weeks. Wondering if you have any color behind that. Are you seeing any increased elasticities? Then a bit longer term, can you discuss a little bit what you're seeing in terms of U.S. market share dynamics? To what extent do you think you're benefiting from some of the upheaval at Bang? To what extent do you think the improved market share performance versus Red Bull is durable? You know, if you look at the 13-week numbers, and you look at the category inconvenience, the category was up 9.5%. The company, all our brands were up 10.4%. If you go back to the 5-week numbers, the total category inconvenience was up 9% and the brand, the total company was up 9.2%. Monster on its own was up 9.5% in the 13 weeks and up 8.1% in the 5 weeks. You know, I'm not sure that. While we do follow Nielsen and we very cautious about, you know, looking at the stats, I'm not sure that this is telling us anything convincing about the category in the 5 weeks. The next question will come from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, everyone. Hi. You know, there's a, you know, a lot of good innovation coming, you know, from True Water to, you know, innovation on alcohol. You know, I wonder if you could maybe comment on the cost environment. You know, certainly the past 2 years have created an environment that's very atypical for, you know, cost inefficiencies, air freighting of cans, ingredient cost inflation, other inefficiencies within your network, which has really weighed on margins beyond just the commodity piece. Obviously, you're taking price to counteract that. I wonder if you can just comment on how these costs are trending and whether you're seeing any easing and if you expected that easing to continue on a more sustainable basis as we get through the year. Yeah. I mean, we are seeing an easing, obviously, in aluminum. We seeing an easing in freight, both domestic and international. There are other items that, and other of our commodities that are increasing like sugar, at the same time. You know, generally the I would say that the major ingredients packaging are probably going down while there are a bunch of other ingredients that are going up. It's not a, you know, it's not a zero-sum game. Having said that, we still have a number of imported cans in the system, which we will be utilizing as we run through in 2023. From that perspective, I think I've probably told you more than I should because we, you know, we don't give guidance, and we're very cautious about giving guidance on particularly on margins. The next question will come from Andrea Teixeira with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thank you, and happy belated New Year to all. Can you comment on how receptive consumers have been to pricing and if elasticity has been in line with expected and still below historical levels? It sounded like you were saying you're getting more shelf space with some of the innovation and expansion into alcohol. Is that fair to say? Let me answer the first one, we can also talk about the shelf space issues. You know, we're in that shelf space cycle right now. Generally, our customers are focused on resets in the first trimester. We're busy with that now. Yes, we are seeing, you know, some good performance on that score. On the other issue that you mentioned, you know, things are positive. You know, I don't want to say anything more than that, we are. You know, things are definitely very positive with regard to the price increase. You know, we. There was some concern, as you know, because what we were trying to do in the early part of 2022 was to implement reductions in promotions. The way the cost environment ran, it became inevitable that we would have to have a price increase and we'd have to lead the price increase. We are seeing that the price increase is in fact sticking. You know, that's good news. The next question will come from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. All right, thank you. Hi, everyone. Yes, Bonnie. Maybe a little bit of a follow-on question to the one Andrea Teixeira just asked, and some of the things you mentioned, because you did highlight in your presentation that, you know, your pricing, you know, it's, you know, in the energy category, it still lags some of the other categories. Just curious to hear maybe how you're thinking about the possibility to put through more pricing in the U.S. this year. Do you guys feel like your cost headwinds, you know, maybe supply chain challenges are such that you don't need to do this? Can you just confirm whether you did in fact implement a price increase in EMEA on January first? If so, can you maybe give us a sense of the magnitude of that increase and any early read on feedback from retailers and consumers? Thanks. The price increase in EMEA is on a rolling basis. It will be rolled out through the first 4 months of 2023. We are aiming at 7% as a price increase, working in conjunction with our bottlers and our distributors in EMEA. That's really the target number that we're working on. As regards the US, you know, we just had a price increase September 1. We will evaluate further opportunities or not in 2023 as the year goes by, bearing in mind the fact that, you know, costs are coming now under control. There's also a big concern, not only in the energy drink category, but in other categories as well, that, you know, the consumers may well be resisting some of these increased prices. There's a lot of press now that's focusing on that. I think what we've always done and what we continue to be is cautious and careful with regard to price increases. The next question will come from Carlos Laboy with Redburn. Please go ahead. Hi, Hilton, Rodney. Thank you very much for the presentation. There's a lot of good information on the affordable energy brands and the increasing distribution and also some exciting new flavor line extensions. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about why you've decided to expand so aggressively here. Is it preemptive in case we do see a weak consumer environment in 2023? Could you maybe just talk a little bit about the launch of Predator in China? That could be quite an exciting brand. I think Rodney, I'll take that. The affordable category is not really focused on an issue that in Monster. There are many countries around the world where the energy category has been become established and grown prior to Monster actually getting to those countries. If you look at some of the many of these countries in Far East, Middle East and Africa, the category is in fact, in dollar terms, or certainly in volume, but certainly even in dollar terms or currency terms, is greater in the affordable sector than in the premium sector. What has happened is the premium sector is really dominated principally by Red Bull and ourselves and Monster. There was a lot of opportunity and enormous white space available to us to grow into with a product that really addressed or was affordable to consumers in those countries, and where the premium products were just beyond their... the reach of their, you know, of their earning capacity. The intent with Predator is to really establish a brand that is an international brand that we can grow, but that addresses a completely different sector of the market. For example, as I indicated, for example, in many countries, the... this category is led by PET and not by smaller cans. It's a very different almost a different product, and marketed in a very different way. By going into these markets, it gives us the opportunity to leverage our existing teams and our existing infrastructure in those countries, and not just to focus on premium products. As we, as we've indicated, there are many markets where the premium sector is actually quite small. So, you know, this gives us an opportunity to play in both, in both sectors and in both markets around the world. That's really why we feel this is a very important opportunity to really supplement and support the Monster brand as we've continued to grow that brand around the world. You know, you take a market like India, for example. You've got an enormous population, and our brand is doing very well in the premium sector. There are only so many modern trade accounts or accounts where the affordability of consumers is able to really sustain and purchase a premium product. We don't want to compromise the premium image or the value chain that we are able to achieve with Monster. There is an enormous market, again, in the affordable category in India and now, you know, as we've mentioned, we have China. In China, we've positioned Monster as our Monster. If you look at the sales of the Red Bull in China, it's not the Red Bull that you know from Europe. It's the Red Bull that's in a short, squat gold can. It's not carbonated, and it's at a much lower cost. It's less than half the cost per ounce. There are other brands that have continued to make inroads in China at that lower competitive level, like Eastroc. We see a large market that Monster won't necessarily play in, that is potentially available to us, and that is our strategy now to continue to put support and to grow Monster as a premium brand. At the same time, to also now take the opportunity to use our bottlers and our own people and staff in these markets, our own teams, to basically put effort and to roll out a product in to address that affordable sector. There are many countries where the affordable sector does not exist and where we would never launch a or start an affordable energy market. You know, you can think of Canada, the U.S., many countries in or most countries in Western Europe, Japan, I mean, there's just not an affordable energy category there, nor would we consider launching an affordable energy product to compete against our own Monster. It's only in those countries where there isn't an affordable energy segment already or where there's some opportunity for an affordable energy segment. The next question will come from Kevin Grundy with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I want to kind of zoom out a bit and ask on a question to your U.S. market share relative to performance energy brands and the disruption that we've seen in the category. You know, performance or functional energy is now about 15% or so of the category. CELSIUS, of course, has gone through the Pepsi system. KDP just took a stake, and then Nutrabolt or C4. There's other brands. Not lost on you guys for a moment, of course, Alani Nu and GHOST and they're gaining traction as well. ZOA is being repositioned and repackaged as we speak. You know, the Monster Zero Energy product makes a lot of sense. I agree, Rodney, the taste is... 'cause I... Thanks for sending the samples. It is pretty indistinguishable in terms of the taste differential. You know, that being said, it may not be viewed as accessible as some of these other brands which have different positioning. Your market share over the past 52 weeks is down only about 50 basis points, but a kind of a longer view, a longer lens with this, if you will. Going back to 2018, your market share is down more than 500 basis points. All a big wind-up, how are you guys seeing the landscape now? Can you comment on the new entrants? How big a threat do you view this longer term to your market share in the U.S. and sort of the competitive mode of the business in the U.S.? Thanks for all that, guys. I appreciate your thoughts. You know, I think all competition, you know, affects your share. The benefit of these brands is that I think they've contributed to the overall growth of the category, and I think have probably brought in some newer consumers. We do see, however, that these brands, we feel that these brands will not have a extensive reach or extensive appeal. If you look at the and actually analyze what they've achieved and what they've done, we do believe that it's going to have, you know, be more limited than perhaps some people suspect. If you look at the brands, they've succeeded in different segments, but many of them have, they've really not succeeded across the board. If you look at the sales per point, I think that's very telling 'cause if even on these brands that are growing at these high rates, you look at the sales per point of CELSIUS, the sales per point of Alani Nu, the sales per point of C4, and they are nowhere near the sales per point of the largest, larger brands. Now, they are increasing in sales largely because they're increasing and achieving increased distribution. As I said, I think the important indicator is not so much increased distribution where you start off on a smaller base and you can grow, but it's a question of what are the sales per point. Alani Nu has done much... You know, has done well in the Target and some of the grocery items where it's more of a sort of female-oriented brand. It's not achieving very much success, quite frankly, in the convenience channel, which is the main channel. We think that to a lesser extent, we think CELSIUS is in a similar position. On the other hand, if you take a brand like GHOST, they sort of grew up, and they appeal more in a 16-ounce can, and they're positioned more in the convenience channel, and they have got a better share of the convenience channel. Again, I think, You know, again, we don't know, but we believe they will probably struggle in more of the other mainstream channels. All of these brands are gonna have share, and they're all respectable and good, credible competitors. Ultimately, we think there is a limit to where and how they will grow and, you know, we've experienced that with Bang, quite apart from the recent issues that happened. Even Bang started to have a sort of reasonably quick rise, but then eventually started to level out and hasn't had the bandwidth to really expand further either. I think, Kevin, the one issue I would take is that the way we define the energy market here is that we talk about performance energy. One of the brands that you know, you put into the performance energy sector, we would put into the good-for-you segment, which, you know, it doesn't mean anything, but it's how we categorize the category. With regard to performance energy, remember, we have Reign there. We have a number of other products in the good-for-you market that we've spoken about, even Ultra, which you know, we put into the regular Monster line and view Nielsen as part of the as Ultra as part of that. That in itself is a good-for-you product. It's got no sugar, you know, it really is a good-for-you product. You know, there are other things that we're looking at and other things on the drawing board. Also, don't forget that when you look at Nielsen, it's just a part of the category. I mean, there's a whole non-measured category out there that we actively participate in and that we've spoken about over many years on our various calls. Just to build finally on Hilton's point. You know, we feel that Reign really does play in that performance, what we'd call as that sort of, for want of a better way, just a definition, a performance category. You know, the... If you... As we indicated earlier in the presentation, the Reign Storm brand line that we are launching will really address, we think the sort of healthier, good-for-you feel- Sure sort of clean energy category. We think, you know, we're quite hopeful that line will also continue to enable us to get into that category now. I mean, some of the other brands, you know, they get a lot of hype, but they really do nothing. Zoa has gone nowhere, and I really don't think it is going anywhere. You know, again, People get a little bit over-exuberant with these brands. The question will be which one or more of them will have legs and sustainability. You know, the question is, as you've asked, Kevin, is how far can they go? We think there is a more limited availability or suitability that will be achieved by these brands. They will be there, but we don't think they're going to be mainstream or going to affect what we would again, probably call here the sort of premium energy category, the credible energy category, which is really made up by Red Bull and ourselves and Monster. Yeah. Don't for a moment think we don't look at these brands and look at the growth in these brands and address them, you know, as we did with Bang and as we're doing with some of the other brands that are growing. The next question will come from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just to ask in a different direction. You know, thinking about the setup into 2023, you seem, you know, more optimistic, it would sound like, particularly on the cost side. You know, sales still progressing nicely. I guess just, you know, cash flow has been a bit constrained and capital allocation's been a little bit constrained over the past three abnormal years. If 2023 is gonna be a more normal year, just curious to get your thoughts around capital allocation, share buyback, and how you're thinking about that, you know, given it was a meaningful part of the story, you know, pre-2020. Thanks very much. We're continuing with our buyback, and we'll continue with our buyback. You know, I don't think that capital has, you know, thankfully has never been constrained, you know, here at Monster. We have significant cash reserves, as you know. The company continues to be very cash positive. The question the analysts always ask us is, "How are you going to deploy the cash?" Our answers and our actions have been that we've been consistent over buying back shares over, you know, a very long period of time. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rodney Pondel for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir. I just became Rodney Pondel, but okay. Thanks very much, everybody, for joining us on this on this call. You know, I think that, you know, while we do face challenges on the cost side, and there is optimism to, you know, going forward in that side as things, I think, will start normalizing. We hope that the world will start normalizing, although we, you know, there's still a lot of COVID out there. We're still seeing people, you know, getting sick. Ultimately, it seems to be not as severe as in the past. We think that with normalization, you know, we're looking forward to a good 2023. We're very excited that we're ably... It's taken some time, but we've done it carefully, that we're able to now start implementing our strategy in the diversification. Firstly on the alcohol side with the Beast, and we have some other, you know, products that will follow in the flavored malt beverage category, will follow the Beast lineup. We're looking at some diversification and to find a, you know, a niche, but we think it is quite exciting. We think we can get some growth at a, at a premium price in the True Water product line. You know, we do have some other, you know, potential innovation down the line. All in all, we think that, you know, we're very, very optimistic for 2023. We thank you for your support, and obviously we'll, you know, report next after we report the full year's earnings. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. We report earnings, Tom, when? End of February. End of February, early March. We'll speak then. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Stay well and safe. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.