PARIS (Reuters) - French spirits group Pernod Ricard (PA:PERP) posted a 2 percent rise in first-quarter underlying sales on Thursday, beating market expectations, as demand slightly improved in Asia.
The world's second-biggest spirits group behind Britain's Diageo (L:DGE) was cautious for the current year, predicting a gradual improvement in sales in an environment that it said would remain "difficult".
Pernod forecast growth in underlying profit from recurring operations of between 1 and 3 percent for the year ending June 30, 2015.
That would compare with profit growth of 2 percent achieved in fiscal year 2013/14.
For the first quarter ended Sept. 30, Pernod reported sales of 2.037 billion euros (1.6 billion pounds), a like-for-like rise of 2 percent and a rebound from a 2 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2013/14.
The company-compiled consensus of analysts was for underlying sales growth of 1.5 percent in the quarter.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by James Regan)