British confectionery group Cadbury reported a pickup in April and May trading today, after suffering a slow start to the year, and confirmed its sales growth and profit margin targets for 2009.
The London-based maker of Dairy Milk chocolate, Trident gum and Halls cough drops said growth in chocolate was robust while gum and candy both grew, helped by improved performances in a number of developed markets. It gave no specific figures.
Although conditions in mainland Europe remain challenging, the group held its sales growth forecast for 2009, with the slower start to the year set to be balanced by a stronger second half, underpinned by planned new product launches.
“Our early progress has continued into the second quarter with our businesses focused on delivering market share gains and efficiency improvements,” chief executive Todd Stitzer said in a trading statement towards the end of its first-half.
As a result, it held its 2009 targets of sales growth at around the lower end of its medium-term 4 per cent to 6 per cent range and to make good progress towards its goal of mid-teen percentage margins by 2011, after posting 11.9 per cent for 2008.
Forecasts looked for an average first-half sales rise of 3.2 per cent in a Reuters survey of five brokers, and came after the confectioner saw first-quarter sales up only 2 per cent, hurt by destocking in North America and weak mainland European markets.
Cadbury shares, which traded around 640 pence in May 2008, after its soft drinks demerger, have underperformed the FTSE 100 Index by 10 per cent so far this year, and the DJ European food and beverage index by 4 per cent.
Reuters