Nestle nine-month sales: 4,4 percent organic growth

Vevey / CH. (nsa) Swiss Nestle S.A. announced its results for the first nine months 2013. In the first nine months of 2013, Nestle´s sales increased by 4,0 percent to 68,4 billion CHF, impacted by negative foreign exchange of 2,5 percent. Organic growth was 4,4 percent, composed of 3,0 percent real internal growth and 1,4 percent pricing. Acquisitions, net of divestitures, added 2,1 percent to sales. Organic growth for the Group was 5,1 percent in the Americas, 0,9 percent in Europe and 6,9 percent in Asia, Oceania and Africa. Globally our business grew 1,1 percent in developed markets and 8,8 percent in emerging markets. Real internal growth was 2,0 percent in the Americas, 1,9 percent in Europe and 5,8 percent in Asia, Oceania and Africa.

CEO Paul Bulcke: «Our real internal growth has regained momentum and is broad-based across categories, price points and geographies. Most notably, Europe continues to grow and Asia and Africa have picked up speed. Today´s challenging environment is the right time for us to further reinforce the fundamentals of our business: those which drive growth like innovation, distribution and consumer engagement and those which drive operational performance like strengthening our portfolio, improving our resource allocation and increasing our structural efficiency. We expect our continued growth momentum to enable us to deliver around five percent organic growth for the full year together with an improvement in margins and underlying earnings per share in constant currencies».

Nestle S.A. expects its continued growth momentum to enable the Group to deliver around five percent organic growth for the full year together with an improvement in margins and underlying earnings per share in constant currencies, as well as an improvement in its capital efficiency. The complete statement is available on the company web server.