Now facing a battle on two fronts, Foster's said yesterday that volumes at CUB dropped 1.1 per cent in the December half, when industry experts estimated the Australian beer market had grown at least 1 per cent and possibly as much as 3 per cent.

Although Foster's is offsetting some losses with beer brands such as Pure Blonde and ciders, the latest results point to consumers defecting to labels owned by arch-rival Lion Nathan and micro brewers.

Foster's wine division, inherited in its ill-fated $3.7 billion takeover of Southcorp in 2005, also faced headwinds with recessionary conditions in its key markets of North America and Europe and an $83 million cut in pre-tax earnings due to the high Australian dollar.

Foster's yesterday reported a 13.5 per cent fall in first-half net profit to $355.7 million as revenue slipped 4.7 per cent to $2.399 billion. The result was below analysts' expectations of a profit of about $390 million.

''The challenge they have still got is losing market share in beer,'' said Evans & Partners analyst Paul Ryan.

''Consumers are voting with their feet and that's a headwind, so Foster's has to innovate more. They still have a bit of work to do.''

Although it lost market share, CUB had a 4.7 per cent gain in sales revenue while pre-tax earnings rose 6.6 per cent to $486.4 million. Its new beer brands, such as Pure Blonde, increased net sales revenue by 10.1 per cent.

Chief executive Ian Johnston would not put a date on when CUB would increase market share but said an operational restructure had already shown benefits in the beer and wine businesses.

''I'm confident that over the coming 12 to 18 months we will see the changes across our business translate into sustained performance improvement,'' he said.