Danone Continues to Make Progress Towards its 2020 Objectives
Danone has reported a 0.7% decline in revenue to €24.66 billion with operating income down 26.5% to €2.74 billion for 2018. However, on a ‘like-for-like New Danone’ basis consolidated sales rose by 2.9% with a 3.6% growth in value, led by a continued mix and portfolio valorization, largely offsetting a 0.7% decline in volumes. All Danone’s businesses – Essential Dairy and Plant-Based Products, Waters, Early Life Nutrition and Advanced Medical Nutrition – contributed to the growth.
Emmanuel Faber, chairman and chief executive of Danone, comments: “I am proud of the results achieved by our teams at Danone in 2018. Our company is becoming more agile every day. We keep adjusting our ways of working and delivering efficiency. And we adapt to the ever changing world around us, as exemplified by the impressive acceleration of our innovation rate, supplying a quarter of our total sales in 2018 from only 16% two years ago, and our 40% growth in e-commerce last year.
Emmanuel Faber, chairman and chief executive of Danone.
“With Specialized Nutrition, Waters and our global plant based brands from WhiteWave continuing to post strong growth despite a very volatile environment, the year has seen the encouraging progress of our Essential Dairy and Plant-based business in Europe, which stabilized in the fourth quarter last year. This could not have happened without the multi-faceted reinvention of Activia, which shows that after years of decline, embracing with no fear the new paradigms can turn around a large global brand.”
In 2019, Danone will continue to make progress towards its 2020 objectives by strengthening its operating model through its priorities: accelerate growth, maximize efficiencies and allocate capital with discipline. Delivery of its agenda of sales growth acceleration and improved recurring operating margin will be supported by valorized innovations, active portfolio management, and further savings from the Protein efficiency program and WhiteWave integration synergies.
For 2019, Danone is targeting like-for-like sales growth of around 3% and recurring operating margin above 15%.
