Mexico’s Modelo Especial was the top-selling US beer in May, dethroning perennial champion Bud Light, according to new data from Nielsen and beverage consultancy Bump Williams.
Modelo accounted for 8.4% of US retail-store beer sales in the four weeks ending June 3, versus 7.3% for Bud Light.
Bud Light overtook Budweiser as America's top-selling beer in 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Bud Light's sales fell about 24% year over year in May.
Likely hastening Bud Light’s decline is a conservative boycott of the brand that began in April, when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted on Instagram about some Bud Light sent to her by Anheuser-Busch.
Drinkers have also been switching to Mexican imports as well as other alcoholic beverages, such as hard seltzers and wine, and Modelo and Michelob Ultra were on track to overtake Bud Light in a year or longer, the Journal reported.
Anheuser-Busch, which is part of the Belgian multinational beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD), bought Mexico's Grupo Modelo in 2012 but sold the US rights to Modelo Especial and Corona to Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) as part of the regulatory approval for the merger.
Anheuser-Busch also brews Michelob Ultra.
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