Unilever Plc reported sales that beat analysts’ estimates, driven by higher prices for products like Dove soap and Knorr stock cubes.
Sales advanced 7.9% on an underlying basis in the second quarter. Unilever also raised its full-year forecast, predicting revenue growth of more than 5% this year, the company said Tuesday. The guidance may be conservative, as analysts are forecasting 6.1%.
Investors are scrutinizing the first set of results under Chief Executive Hein Schumacher for hints of his strategy to revive Unilever’s sluggish performance.
The company has chosen an external CEO to help fix its bureaucratic culture and deal with critiques that the company has become too focused with the so-called “social purpose” of the consumer products it sells. Schumacher, the former boss of Dutch dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina, is expected to revisit the debate over splitting food brands like Hellmann’s mayonnaise from the faster-growing personal care, beauty and wellbeing units.
The best performing businesses were personal care, nutrition and beauty. Ice cream was Unilever’s slowest growing division with underlying sales growth of 5.6% even as prices rose more than 12%.
Unilever forecast pricing to moderate throughout the year. The company said it expects its own costs to rise by about €400 million ($443 million) in the second half. Inflation in the first half was about €1.5 billion.
(Updates with cost inflation forecast in sixth paragraph)
