Reckitt Benckiser sees sales rise

Reckitt Benckiser Group raised its full-year sales outlook after reporting a bigger-than-expected gain in third-quarter sales helped by consumer health products.

The maker of Durex condoms, Nurofen tablets and Finish detergent said like-for-like sales rose 7 per cent. Analysts on average were expecting a rise of 5.2 per cent, according to a company-supplied consensus.

Net revenue was £2.2bn pounds, just shy of analysts’ estimates of £2.21bn.

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The company said it was now targeting full-year like-for-like sales growth of 5 per cent, up from an earlier forecast of 4 to 5 per cent.

Rakesh Kapoor, chief executive officer, said: “Our strategy for growth and outperformance, focused on powermarkets and powerbrands continues to deliver. In Q3 we achieved continued broad-based growth throughout our European and North American Powermarkets, and double-digit growth in developing markets. Health and hygiene brands had an excellent quarter with +8 per cent growth, driven by innovations and continued penetration building programmes.”

He added that “markets remain challenging”, but that with 6 per cent like-for-like growth on a year, they are able to raise our full year like-for-like revenue target to 5 per cent, “therefore remain poised for another year of growth and margin expansion.”