Swiss food company Nestlé has experienced a disappointing growth in the first half of 2016: the growth pace was the company’s lowest since 2009.
Targets reached
Over the first six months of 2016, Nestlé’s turnover grew 3.5 % to 43.2 billion Swiss francs (40 billion euro). However, analysts had expected a 3.7 % growth. The company also failed to meet expectations when it comes to net profit, which “only” grew 4.5 % to 4.1 billion francs (3.8 billion euro).
Regardless, Nestlé is not negative about its performance: “The first half of 2016 was in line with our expectation with growth almost entirely driven by volume and product mix, yielding further market share gains”, CEO Paul Bulcke said. Another explanation for the lower growth may be that Nestlé barely issued any price hikes.
The company repeats its 2016 forecast, aiming for a 4.2 % autonomous turnover growth and it also expects prices to improve over the next few months. Currently, it still struggles with European deflation, which is a worry for its own pricing.
