Danone eyes further sales and profit growth in 2016

[PARIS] French food group Danone on Tuesday forecast like-for-like sales growth of between 3 and 5 per cent this year as economic conditions remain volatile and uncertain, notably in emerging markets.

The world's largest yoghurt maker also predicted a solid improvement in its operating margin, having gained 17 basis points like-for-like in 2015 to 12.91 per cent, in line with the company-compiled consensus of analysts of 12.93 per cent.

The maker of Activia and Actimel yoghurt, Evian water and Bledina baby food said underlying sales in 2015 grew 4.4 per cent to 22.412 billion euros (S$34.74 billion), helped by recovering baby food sales in Asia and an improving core dairy division.

This was slightly above the analyst consensus of 4.1 per cent growth and the 4.2 per cent achieved by Swiss rival Nestle.

REUTERS