China and home cooks help Unilever top forecasts By Reuters

By Siddharth Cavale

(Reuters) -Unilever beat quarterly sales forecasts on Thursday, helped by a pick up in home cooking in coronavirus lockdowns and a strong economic recovery in China, and said it would buy back up to 3 billion euros ($3.6 billion) of shares from May.

The maker of Dove soap and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream said underlying sales rose 5.7% in the three months to the end of March, topping analysts’ average forecast of 3.9%, according to a company supplied consensus.

“We have had a good start to the year. We are growing faster than our markets,” finance chief Graeme Pitkethly told reporters.

The group it was confident of delivering full-year underlying sales growth within its mid-term target range of 3-5%, with the first half around the top of the range. Some analysts had doubted whether it would hit that goal this year.

Unilever (LON:ULVR) also said it expected a slight increase in underlying operating margin this year, and that it was making good progress in separating its Elida beauty and tea businesses.

Underlying sales in the group’s food and refreshments business, where brands include Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr soups, jumped 9.8% in the quarter, helped by strong demand for home consumption in North America and Europe.

Emerging markets saw growth of 9.4%, led by double-digit increases in China and India following strict lockdowns the previous year.

However, Unilever noted the surge in COVID-19 infections currently sweeping India, likely to affect business there.

($1 = 0.8246 euros)