Teens Want More Monster Energy As Celsius Loses Its Fizz

Piper Sandler’s latest Teen Survey of nearly 9,000 respondents offers an early read on energy drink preferences among younger consumers.

Analyst Michael Lavery highlighted Monster’s growing appeal, noting that the brand is gaining share and leading rivals in consumers’ intentions to increase consumption.

“Teens report highest consumption increase intent for Monster,” Lavery wrote in the note published earlier today.

He continued:

We asked teens whether they intend to drink more or less of their favorite energy drink brands in the next six months; 20% plan to drink more while 49% plan to drink the same amount and 32% plan to drink less (though reduction intentions often do not actually occur).

Teens plan to drink more Monster (23%), than Alani Nu (20%), Red Bull (18%), and Celsius (16%).

The survey of roughly 8,935 teens showed Monster retaining second place among their preferred energy drink brands, behind Red Bull. Its share of mentions rose about .6 percentage points from a year earlier, reaching about 28%, broadly in line with its 27% share of measured US retail sales.

The results stand in sharp contrast with Celsius, which dropped from fourth to sixth and lost about 5.55 percentage points of preference share. Alani Nu remained third but also lost momentum among young consumers. 

Monster consumption is heavily skewed toward males: about 75% of teens who selected it as their favorite energy drink were boys. Alani Nu’s following was mostly female, highlighting how differently the brands compete for younger consumers.

Other fun facts from the survey:

Energy drinks top soda and coffee for source of energy among young consumers.

Maybe the youngsters need some Hooked on Phonics …

Monster’s growing advantage over Celsius is showing up in stock performance this year.

Celsius is down 41% year-to-date, while Monster is up solidly at around 14.3%.