By Peter Evans
LONDON-- Unilever PLC on Thursday said the strong U.S. dollar
and a shift into more premium products helped it post a big rise in
first-quarter sales.
The maker of Dove soap and Axe deodorant said sales increased
12% to EUR12.8 billion ($13.7 billion) in the first three months of
2015. The company's shares rose sharply in early London
trading.
Last year, Unilever and many other European consumer-goods
companies blamed currency swings for eating into sales. But in
2015, with the euro down around 12% against the dollar, the value
of Unilever's sales in the U.S. has increased dramatically. The
company cited similar trends with the Indian rupee and Brazilian
real.
In total, Unilever said currency movements boosted sales by
10.6% in the first quarter. It added that full-year sales would
increase 9% at current exchange rates. "The euro is weaker against
all our main currencies, except the ruble," said Chief Financial
Officer Jean-Marc Huët.
Underlying sales--which strips out the impact of acquisitions,
disposals and currency movements--grew 2.8%, compared with 3.6% in
the same period last year.
After years of soaring sales growth, Unilever has struggled of
late as the developing markets in which it makes the majority of
its sales have stalled. Underlying sales in emerging markets
increased 5.4% in the first quarter, down from 6.6% a year
earlier.
Unilever has helped mitigate slowing markets by raising prices
and releasing premium versions of its products, such as gel-capsule
versions of OMO laundry detergent in Brazil and a range of
high-price Axe deodorants in the U.S. Overall, Unilever increased
prices by 1.9% across the company in the quarter.
"Despite high levels of currency and commodity volatility, we
are now starting to see more tailwinds than headwinds in our
markets, and expect our initiatives to deliver a further
improvement in volume growth in the remainder of the year," Chief
Executive Paul Polman said.
Write to Peter Evans at peter.evans@wsj.com
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