Danone 3Q Sales Rose, Adjusts 2019 Guidance to Lower Expectations

   By Cristina Roca

Danone SA (BN.FR) said Friday that sales for its third quarter grew at an accelerated pace, but adjusted its guidance to lower expectations for its like-for-like sales growth in 2019.

The French food company said sales came to 6.42 billion euros ($7.13 billion), up from EUR6.19 billion the year previous and better than analysts' consensus expectations of EUR6.37 billion.

On a like-for-like basis, sales rose 3%, Danone said.

Despite its sales growth accelerating compared with the previous quarter, some of the headwinds Danone had flagged during second-quarter reporting didn't ease in the third quarter, management said during a conference call Friday morning. Danone cited tough comparison bases in Europe for its waters business in particular.

Danone widened its guidance of like-for-like sales growth toward the lower end. It now sees like-for-like sales growing 2.5%-3%, compared with previous guidance of 3%. For the first nine months of the year, like-for-like sales grew 2.1%, the maker of Activia and Alpro said.

Danone backed its target of having a recurring operating margin above 15% for 2019.

Write to Cristina Roca at cristina.roca@dowjones.com; @_cristinaroca

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 18, 2019 01:49 ET (05:49 GMT)

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