(Reuters) – Mondelez International Inc on Thursday raised its full-year sales forecast, benefiting from resilient demand for its chocolates, biscuits, and baked snacks, despite multiple rounds of price hikes and inflation pinching consumer wallets.
Global packaged food makers such as Mondelez and Hershey Co have been raising their product prices over the past year to protect their profit margins from persisting supply chain, labor, raw materials and freight costs.
Regardless of this, they have received little opposition from inflation-hit consumers, who continue to snack on their preferred chocolates and snacks rather than trading down to private-label alternatives, boosting Mondelez’s sales.
The company said it expects full-year 2023 organic revenue, which excludes the impacts of acquisitions, divestitures and currency rate fluctuations, to rise more than 10%, compared to previous forecast of growth of 5% to 7%.
The Oreo maker said it now expects full-year 2023 earnings to grow more than 10% on a constant currency basis, compared to its earlier projection of high-single digit growth.
The company’s net revenue rose to $9.20 billion in the first quarter from $7.76 billion a year earlier, while analysts on average had expected $8.48 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
(Reporting by Granth Vanaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
