Corona Beer Saves Constellation Brands from Deepening Struggle

Constellation Brands, the maker Corona beer and brands like Robert Mondavi wines, has been struggling with sales for a couple of years despite strong household name recognition. In the latest quarter, profit was $1.11 per share, four cents short of expectations. Sales were a little over $1.6 billion. That's better than a year ago, but still below what observers wanted to see. The company also cut its outlook for 2015. Constellation says wine and spirits sales rose slightly. The best seller is beer, up 9% compared to last year. CEO Rob Sands said, '[Our] results reflect another quarter of excellent performance from our beer business. While we expect to see some shift in beer sales from the second quarter into the third quarter as a result of the recall, we remain on track to achieve our goal for fiscal 2015.'