Unilever, whose soaps and detergents are used by 2 billion consumers daily, reported fourth-quarter sales that beat estimates, fueled by sales of beauty products and premium ice creams.
Revenue rose 4.9 percent, excluding acquisitions and currency shifts, in the three months through last month, London and Rotterdam-based Unilever said in a statement yesterday.
The median estimate of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for growth of 4 percent.
Growth in the quarter beat expectations thanks to higher pricing than anticipated, as the quantity of goods sold was below analysts’ estimates.
Sales for the year rose 10 percent compared to 2014, to 53.3 billion euros (US$58 billion).
However, net profit was 5.3 billion euros, down 5 percent from 2014, when profit was boosted by one-off items, including the sale of its North American pasta sauce brands Ragu and Bertolli.
CEO Paul Polman said the results show that Unilever has “again grown ahead of our markets,” despite a tough year of “slower global economic growth, intensifying geopolitical instability, and high currency and commodity volatility.”
“We are preparing ourselves for tougher market conditions and high volatility in 2016, as world events in recent weeks have highlighted,” he said in the statement.
The company is warding off ebbing demand for personal and home-care products in India, where its business is growing at the slowest pace in a decade.
To buoy profitability, it has acquired high-end brands such as Grom gelato and built a 400 million euro (US$435 million) prestige personal-care division to offset pressure from bargain-hunting European consumers.
Unilever is also introducing zero-based budgeting — wherein expenses must be justified from nil annually or quarterly — to cut costs by about 1 billion euros by 2018.
Additional reporting by AP
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