French food giant Danone’s first quarter was an impressive one: like-for-like turnover grew 4.9 %, its best performance in the past five years.
6 billion euro turnover
Over the past three months, Danone had a 6.085 billion euro turnover, up 10.8 % compared to the year before and almost a 5 % like-for-like turnover increase. Both price increases (+ 1.1 %) and volume growth (+ 3.8 %) contributed to its growth.
The French company’s excellent performance is mainly thanks to its “specialized food”: that division’s turnover grew 14.5 % to 1.8 billion euro, thanks to baby milk sales in China (+ 50 %). Its water division, with brands like Evian and Badoit, also experienced a 4.2 % like-for-like turnover increase, to 976 million euro. The dairy division, still Danone’s prime division, suffered a 0.2 % dip in North America (1.19 billion euro), but it compensated for that drop elsewhere (+ 0.8 % to 2.1 billion euro).
Danone increasingly depends on the emerging regions for its growth. Europe and North America may still occupy 3.3 billion euro of its turnover, that is 0.5 % less than last year. Like-for-like turnover in the rest of world grew 11.7 % to 2.8 billion euro.
