Proactive Investors - First-quarter results from Unilever PLC (LON:ULVR) beat market expectations across the board but the Domestos and Magnum maker kept its full-year guidance unchanged.
Turnover in the first three months of the year landed at €15 billion, up 1.4% on a year ago and above the €14.7 billion average forecast by City analysts.
Underlying sales growth (USG) was 4.4%, down from 4.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, but better than the 3.0% City consensus forecast.
Underlying sales volumes improved to 2.2% from 1.8% in Q4 and 0.2% for the whole of last year, as well as beating market expectations.
As this implied, underlying price growth slowed to 2.2% from 2.8% in the previous quarter, but was higher than the City consensus of 1.8%.
The main drivers of growth remained from the fourth quarter, but the pace slowed slightly, with the Beauty & Wellbeing division generating 7.4% USG (from 7.9% in Q4 and 8.3% last year), and Personal Care, up 4.8% (6.4% and 8.9%).
Home Care at 3.1% was an improvement, Nutrition at 3.7% was a decline, and the Ice Cream business, which is being prepared for sale, swung back into growth.
The 30 leading ‘power brands’, which contribute around 75% of turnover, saw 6.1% USG, down from 6.5% in the fourth quarter and 8.6% last year, though volume growth of 3.8% was little changed.
The €1.5 billion share buyback programme announced at the full year results in February was confirmed and is expected to begin in the second quarter.
The quarterly interim dividend for the first quarter was maintained at €0.4268.