Monster's Q2 2026 net sales rose 20.2% to $2.54B on 22.3% higher case volume and 34.6% international growth, but a 24.7% jump in operating expenses (mostly marketing) trimmed operating margin to 29.2%; diluted EPS rose 19.0% to $0.59.
Revenue
$2.5B
+20.2% YoY
Net income
$585M
+19.6% YoY
Diluted EPS
$0.59
+19.0% YoY
Operating margin
29.2%
Monster sells 22% more cans, but spends faster to get there
Monster Beverage's net sales rose 20.2% to $2.54 billion in the second quarter of 2026 (April–June), and diluted earnings per share rose 19.0% to $0.59. The growth came almost entirely from selling more drinks, not from charging more per drink: energy drink volume rose 22.3% while average revenue per case slipped about 1%. Gross margin inched up, but operating expenses grew faster than sales (+24.7%), mainly because of heavier marketing spend. As a result, operating margin slipped from 29.9% to 29.2% and net income grew slightly more slowly than revenue.
Key figures
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Net sales
$2,537.5M
$2,111.6M
+20.2%
Net sales, currency-adjusted
—
—
+17.9%
Gross margin
55.9%
55.7%
+0.2 pts
Operating expenses
$679.2M
$544.8M
+24.7%
Operating income
$740.4M
$631.6M
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Gross margin is the share of sales left after the cost of making the product. Operating margin is the share left after running the business as well, before interest and tax. Monster books outbound freight and warehousing as operating expenses rather than cost of sales, so its gross margin reads higher than peers that count those costs in cost of sales.
What drove revenue: volume and international
The 10-Q attributes the gain "primarily" to "increased worldwide sales of our Monster Energy® brand energy drinks as a result of increased consumer demand." Two details show what that growth is made of:
It is all volume, no price. Cases rose 22.3% but net sales per case fell from $8.29 to $8.20. Monster raised US prices in Q4 2025 (the filing calls these the "Pricing Actions"), so a lower per-case figure means the price increase was more than offset by mix: a growing share of cases are sold in international markets, where revenue per case is lower on average. The filing names "geographical sales mix" as a drag on margins.
International is doing the heavy lifting. Sales outside the US rose 34.6% to $1.16 billion, or 29.0% excluding currency moves, and now make up 46% of the total, up from 41%. By subtraction, US sales grew only about 10% (from roughly $1.25 billion to $1.37 billion). Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, the bottler for much of Western Europe, grew to 16% of Monster's net sales from 15%.
Currency helped. A weaker dollar added $48.5 million, or about 2.3 points of the 20.2% growth. Stripping it out, sales grew 17.9%.
Segment operating income is before corporate and unallocated costs.
Monster Energy Drinks (92.8% of sales, up from 91.7%) is the business. Its operating income rose 15.6%, slower than its 21.6% sales growth. By our calculation its segment operating margin narrowed from about 39.1% to 37.2%, the same pattern of spending outrunning sales that shows up in the group totals.
Strategic Brands grew on Fury, Predator and Burn, "partially offset by decreased sales of NOS®," but its operating income dipped 2.2% because of higher operating expenses.
Alcohol Brands keeps shrinking. Sales fell 15.2%, driven by weaker sales of The Beast line, and barrel volume dropped 16.1%. The segment's loss halved to $7.3 million, but that came from cutting general and administrative costs, not from a revival in sales. The segment is now just 1.3% of revenue.
Margins: pricing versus aluminum
Gross margin edged up to 55.9% from 55.7%. The filing attributes this to "the Pricing Actions and product sales mix, partially offset by increased aluminum can costs, geographical sales mix and increased freight-in costs." Almost everything Monster sells is canned, and the US aluminum price includes a regional delivery surcharge (the "Midwest Premium") that the filing lists as a cost risk. So far this year the price increase has only just kept ahead of those costs.
The sequential picture matters more than the year-on-year one. Backing Q2 out of the six-month figures, Q1 2026 gross margin was about 55.0%, against 56.5% a year earlier. That was a 1.5-point decline, and for the first half as a whole the 10-Q reports gross margin down to 55.5% from 56.1%. Q2 turned that year-on-year decline into a small gain, so costs look to be coming back under control rather than getting worse.
Below gross profit, the story reverses. Operating expenses rose $134.4 million, driven by:
Selling and marketing: +$72.3 million, "primarily due to increased social, digital, media and other marketing expenses, including sponsorships and endorsements, in order to reach a broader consumer audience and increase household penetration"
Distribution: +$36.8 million, which matches the higher volume (outbound freight and warehousing are booked here)
Payroll: +$18.0 million
Operating expenses rose to 26.8% of sales from 25.8%. This is a deliberate choice: management said in the earnings release that its "2026 marketing strategy includes increased marketing investments across a variety of new platforms and partnerships." It is still the reason operating income (+17.2%) grew slower than sales.
Below the operating line
Interest income doubled to $36.0 million from $18.1 million, earned on $2.19 billion in cash, $1.23 billion in short-term investments and $781 million in long-term investments at June 30. That is about $18 million of extra pre-tax income that has nothing to do with selling drinks.
The effective tax rate dipped to 23.9% from 24.4%, a small help.
No shares were bought back in the quarter, despite a new $500 million authorization approved May 14, 2026. About $900 million remained available across two programs as of August 5. With no buybacks, the share count gave little help to EPS: EPS growth (+19.0%) roughly matched net income growth (+19.6%).
First half of 2026
For the six months, net sales rose 23.3% to $4.89 billion (19.8% excluding currency), operating income rose 22.4% to $1.47 billion, and diluted EPS rose 23.1% to $1.17. Growth slowed from Q1 to Q2. By our calculation, Q1 sales grew about 26.9% (about 22% excluding currency), compared with 20.2% (17.9% excluding currency) in Q2. Q2 was still a very strong quarter for a company this size, but not quite as fast as the start of the year.
Takeaway: Monster's growth is now mostly an international volume story. Overseas sales rose 34.6% and US sales roughly 10%, and more cases at slightly lower revenue per case means price increases are being absorbed by mix. Aluminum costs are no longer squeezing gross margin (it turned slightly positive after a 1.5-point drop in Q1). The profit constraint this quarter was Monster's own marketing budget: operating expenses grew 24.7% against 20.2% sales growth.
Outlook
Monster does not give numerical revenue or earnings guidance, and none was given in the Q2 release or 10-Q. Management's only forward-looking comments were qualitative: the energy drink category "continues to attract new consumers, expand usage occasions and increase household penetration," and marketing spending will stay higher throughout 2026.
Our read for the rest of the year:
Watch the gap between opex and sales. If marketing spend keeps growing faster than revenue, operating margin will keep drifting down even with a stable gross margin. The Q2 dip (−0.7 points) is modest, but it is the clearest thing that changed this quarter.
Gross margin depends on aluminum and on which markets grow. Faster international growth lowers revenue per case, and the filing flags aluminum, the Midwest Premium, freight-in costs and tariffs as cost risks. Price increases have offset these so far. We have not seen a new round of US price increases disclosed.
Currency helped this year. About $138 million of first-half sales growth came from exchange rates. A stronger dollar would take that away.
The alcohol business is not a meaningful drag at 1.3% of sales, but it has not shown it can grow.
The Q3 2026 10-Q, covering July–September, would typically follow an early-November earnings release, based on this year's pattern of results in early May and early August.