Swiss-based fragrance and flavour producer, Givaudan, has announced its first-quarter like-for-like sales that slightly exceeded market expectations due to higher prices offsetting a dip in North American sales volumes.
The company’s revenue for Q1 rose by 3.6% to 1.84 billion Swiss francs ($1.97 billion) on a like-for-like basis, which exceeded the 1.80 billion francs that was anticipated by analysts.
Despite this achievement, the company’s sales growth was below its mid-term target of 4% to 5%. On a reported basis, sales fell 0.4% to 1.77 billion Swiss francs.
While the business reported a decline in North American sales volumes by 9.5%, it has effectively transferred steep input cost increases to customers.
Givaudan aims to address the decline in sales volumes by continuing to implement pricing actions to mitigate input cost inflation.
Analysts from J.P. Morgan predict that the volume set-up could improve in the second half of 2023. As a result, Givaudan’s shares rose by 0.6% in Julius Baer pre-market indications as of 0635 GMT.
($1 = 0.8966 Swiss francs)