Substantial price increases boosted PepsiCo‘s profits, but the multinational is struggling with lower sales and falling volumes, especially in the United States.
Negative trend
In the fourth quarter of 2023, PepsiCo raised its prices by 9% on average, but volumes fell by 4%. As a result, sales declined slightly to 25.9 billion euros. Analysts are disappointed by this negative sales trend, although at the same time they see net profit rising sharply from 481 million euros to 1.2 billion.
PepsiCo is not the only FMCG producer to see volumes come under pressure. Earlier this week, Unilever also had to admit that more consumers are resorting to private labels, due to high inflation. Retailers are also offering resistance: Carrefour pulled Pepsi, Lays and Quaker products from shelves in several countries last month out of dissatisfaction with price increases, which the retailer said were “unacceptable”.
