Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever has posted a 2% rise in first-quarter profits and said earnings and sales of its top brands fell short of the company’s forecasts.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Unilever, which makes Knorr soup and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, posted first-quarter net profit before exceptional items and amortisation (BEIA) of €865m (US$971.5m), on a 4% drop in turnover to €11.12bn.
The company said first-quarter underlying earnings rose 4%, but sales of its top 400 brands rose only 3%, while food sales, which account for half of Unilever’s business, were flat compared with the year-ago period.
Unilever said its first-quarter sales suffered from the late occurrence of Easter this year and one less trading day in the quarter.
Unilever’s head of investor relations Howard Green said trade had been returning to normal in April. He said the effects of a late Easter and the one less trading day had cut growth of its leading brands by two percentage points to 3%.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalData“The underlying performance of the leading brands is growing at five percent. We have seen a bounce back in April,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Unilever’s chairman Niall FitzGerald said the group had seen a slower-than-expected start to the year in sales, but confirmed his confidence in the company’s five-year “path to growth” programme, under which the company plans to focus on its top 400 brands.
“While we face a more challenging operating environment, our business, strengthened by the path to growth programme, is naturally resilient, and we remain comfortable that our plan will deliver the targets we have given for leading brands and earnings growth,” FitzGerald was quoted by Reuters as saying.
