Unilever (ULVR) earnings Q4, full-year FY24

Consumer goods giant Unilever on Thursday posted slightly weaker-than-expected sales growth and pointed to a subdued start to 2025, although it expects this to reverse in the second half of the year.

The company also provided an update on the spin-off of its ice cream business, which houses brands including Ben and Jerry’s and Magnum, saying it would be demerged through a triple listing.

The maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise posted a 4% rise in fourth-quarter underlying sales, slightly missing the 4.1% rise forecast in a company-compiled estimate.

Full-year underlying sales grew 4.2% versus a company-compiled analyst consensus of 4.3%. That was led by 2.9% volume growth. Underlying operating margins came in at 18.4% versus 18.3% estimated. Both figures were in line with the company’s full-year forecasts.

Shares of Unilever fell 7% early in the trading session before closing 5.6% lower.

CEO Hein Schumacher told CNBC Thursday that the growth was led by the company’s 30 so-called power brands — which include Dove, Comfort, Vaseline and Liquid I.V. — and were named as a key focus of the company’s growth action plan announced in November.

“The 30 power brands were actually growing ahead of the company average again in quarter four, 5.3%,” Schumacher told Julianna Tatelbaum.

Sharing its 2025 outlook, the British firm said it expected full-year sales growth in line with its multi-year range of 3% to 5%. It also said it anticipated a “modest improvement” in underlying operating margin, which would be realized in the second half of the year.

“We’re seeing markets slow. We see that continuing in quarter one. Despite markets … we aim to grow ahead of the competition. I feel that was what was done in 2024 and we want to do that again in quarter one, but we see more challenging circumstances overall,” Schumacher said.

Consumer goods companies have been under pressure over recent quarters as rising input costs have pushed prices higher and led consumers to switch to lower cost, private label alternatives.

Speaking to CNBC Wednesday, however, Jon Cox, head of European consumer equities at Kepler Cheuvreux, said it now looked as though the outlook for the sector may be looking up.

“Maybe the corner has turned after what has been a pretty dramatic couple of years in the consumer space,” Cox told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Wednesday.

“Going into this year, we should see a more normalized pricing environment but in addition, a lot of these guys are now investing more in new product development, bigger bolder innovations and at the same time marketing more extensively than they have.”

Cox added that these developments could reverse some of the share losses against private label goods and further accelerate volume growth.

Nestle, the world’s…