Currency headwinds and difficult trading conditions halt Unilever's full-year revenue growth
Household goods giant posts 1% year-on-year decline in revenue, but profits and sales grow steadily.
Household goods giant Unilever reported a decline in full-year revenue, due to a combination of currency headwinds and difficult market conditions in its Indian and Latin American operations.
The FTSE 100-listed company said on Thursday (26 January) that in the last financial year, revenue declined 1% year-on-year to €52.7bn (£44.8bn, £%6.5bn), largely due to adverse currency movements.
Last year, a row blew up between Tesco and Unilever, when the Anglo-Dutch firm raised wholesale prices by 10% for supermarket Tesco to cover the rising costs of goods made aboard since June's Brexit vote, which has seen the pound fall almost 18%.
But Tesco, which has a 28% share of the UK grocery market, refused to pay, resulting in Unilever ending supplies of hundreds of its brands to the supermarket.
However, there was more positive news on the sales front, which rose 3.7% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, driven by a 0.9% increase in volumes and a 2.8% growth in prices.
Meanwhile, at €7.8bn, operating profits were 3.8% higher than last year and net profit climbed 5.5% to €5.5bn, despite difficult trading conditions in Brazil and India. Operations in the latter in particular were hit by the Indian government's demonetisation programme, which saw it remove the 500 and 1,000 rupiahs notes in November.
Group chief executive Paul Polman said the group remained focused on strengthening its operating margin this year but warned the trading environment would remain difficult, in what he described as a time of unprecedented change.
"Our priorities for 2017 continue to be volume growth ahead of our markets, a further increase in core operating margin and strong cash flow," he added.
"The tough market conditions which made the end of the year particularly challenging are likely to continue in the first half of 2017. Against this background, we expect a slow start with growth improving as the year progresses."
Unilever added it will pay a quarterly dividend of 0.3201 euro cents per share for the fourth quarter.
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