Nestlé sees 4.2% organic growth in the first 9 months of 2015

Nestlé has announced its sales results for the first nine months of 2015.

The company saw organic growth of 4.2%, composed of 2.0% real internal growth and 2.2% pricing. Total sales for the period of CHF 64.9 billion were impacted by foreign exchange (-6.7%).

Nestlé continued to grow in each of its three geographies with organic growth of 6.2% in the Americans, 4.0% in Europe, Middle East and north Africa, and 1.1% in Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa.

The company said that the material impact of the withdrawal of Maggi noodles in India, and the situation in China where the recovery is slower than expected, continued to significantly affect growth in its Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa zone, overshadowing better performances elsewhere in the emerging markets and the solid growth in the developed markets.

Nestlé impacted by “exceptional events” in Q3

Commenting on the sales results, Paul Bulcke, Nestlé CEO, said, “After a good performance in the first half of the year we were impacted in the third quarter by exceptional events, with Maggi noodles in India and a rebate adjustment in Nestlé Skin Health. Yet our real internal growth increased, reflecting broad-based positive momentum across our business and many of our markets. There was continued solid performance in Europe, Nestlé Waters and Nestlé Health Science. We made good progress in much of Latin America and delivered a significant improvement in North America, especially in frozen food, contrasting with slower sales recovery in China. On the whole, organic growth fell short of our expectations and therefore we project organic growth of around 4.5% for the full year, with improvements in margins and underlying earnings per share in constant currencies, and capital efficiency.”

For the full year, Nestlé project organic growth of around 4.5%.