Unilever posted strong third quarter results, with underlying sales growth increasing by 5.2 per cent to approximately $14.8bn.
The company’s Power Brands led the successful performance, with a 5.8 per cent underlying sales growth and 3.3 per cent volume increase.
The FMCG giant reported double-digit growth across Dove, Vaseline, Sunsilk, Clear and K18, which was led by volume growth.
Unilever’s Beauty & Wellbeing segment experienced an underlying sales growth of 5.7 per cent to approximately $3.9bn with a 3.6 volume growth and 2.1 per cent price increase.
The company’s Personal Care sector grew by 6.3 per cent to around 3.9bn and saw a 3.8 per cent volume increase during the third quarter.
Within the Personal Care brands, growth was broad-based across all regions, with a high single-digit increase in emerging markets and a mid-single-digit increase in the US.
Unilever’s Home Care segment experienced 9.1 per cent underlying sales growth to approximately $3.5bn and a 5.4 per cent volume increase.
The company’s Foods segment saw a volume decline of 1.1 per cent and an underlying sales growth of 0.1 per cent.
According to the business, the weak performance in the Foods sector was due to ongoing softer market conditions and higher competition in US condiments.
Unilever’s planned McCormick merger is currently on track, and the business is working towards closing the transaction.
After the strong performance in the first nine months of the year, the business has upgraded its future forecast. Unilever now expects underlying sales growth for the full-year to be within the range of 4 per cent to 6 per cent.
The company forecasted a slight improvement in underlying operating margin for the full year compared to 20 per cent in 2025.
Fernando Fernandez, CEO of Unilever said: “We have delivered another quarter of competitive growth, led by continued strong volume delivery and a step up in price to offset the impact of higher commodity costs.
“We are performing while transforming Unilever. We are becoming simpler and sharper, with greater focus and stronger execution as we drive Desire at Scale across our brands. This progress gives us confidence that we will now deliver at least 3 per cent volume growth for the full year.”
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter


