Unilever posts revenue decline, expects difficult start of year

Unilever posted a decline of turnover in 2016 amid "challenging markets," the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company announced on Thursday.

The total turnover in the full-year 2016 amounted to 52.7 billion euros (56.4 billion U.S. dollars), a decline of 1 percent year on year, mainly due to a negative currency impact, said the company.

But the company managed to achieve growth in both underlying sales and net profit in 2016.

The underlying sales growth was 3.7 percent in 2016, with prices up by 2.8 percent and volume up by 0.9 percent. Net profit rose by 5.5 percent to 5.5 billion euros in 2016.

"We have delivered another good all-round performance despite severe economic disruptions, particularly in India and Brazil, two of our largest markets," said Unilever CEO Paul Polman.

"This further demonstrates the progress we have made in transforming Unilever into a more resilient business. We have again grown ahead of our markets, driven by strong innovations that support our category strategies," he added.

But the consumer goods giant expects a slow start of 2017 due to difficult market conditions.

According to Unilever, the market conditions had been challenging throughout the year of 2016, and particularly so in the fourth quarter, mostly reflected in weaker volume performance.

The turnover in the fourth quarter of 2016 was 13 billion euros, up 1.3 percent, but the underlying sales growth meanwhile fell to 2.2 percent.

"The tough market conditions which made the end of the year particularly challenging are likely to continue in the first half of 2017. Against this background, we expect a slow start with growth improving as the year progresses," said Polman. Enditem