Nestle has reported sales of CHF (Swiss Francs) 20.9 billion for the first-quarter (January to March) of 2016, with its infant nutrition business helping to drive growth.
Sales in the Nestle nutrition business stood at CHF 2.6 billion for the first quarter, with the company attributing softer dairy inputs to low pricing in the category.
Furthermore, the main source of growth in the category was from emerging markets and Nestle reports that its Wyeth Infant Nutrition was a key contributor to this growth.
In Europe, Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy all delivered solid growth in the quarter, despite a deflationary environment.
Overall, Nestle posted organic growth of 2.9% in the first quarter of the year, 3% of which was real internal growth and 0.9% was pricing.
The Americas accounted for the majority of this growth (5.5%), followed by Europe, the Middle East and North Africe (3.0%), while Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa contributed 2.3% of the growth.
Paul Bulcke, Nestle CEO said that as anticipated, the first quarter continued the positive momentum in real internal growth, with softer pricing.
“We gained market share in the majority of our categories and businesses. The strongest performances were in Europe, in South East Asia and in Africa as well as for Nescafé, Nespresso and petcare.
“Our US frozen food business is progressing well. The trends seen over the last few quarters show the relevance of our investments and allow us to confirm our outlook for the year.”
