Marketing key to Nestlé’s over-performance
Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, says that “significant” levels of marketing support and brand innovation helped lift sales by 4.1% in the first nine months of 2011.
The Nescafe and KitKat owner says sales in the year to 30 September grew to 60.9bn Swiss Francs (£42.8bn). Performance was also lifted by higher prices and strong double digit growth in emerging markets.
There will be a “slight over performance” in sales growth for the full-year, the company adds, which is now forecast to be above the previous 5-6% target.
Paul Bulcke, Nestlé CEO, says the “constant renovation” of its product portfolio together with a “strong pipeline of game-changing innovations” helped the company gain share for many of its brands.
He adds: “A high rate of innovation also requires significant consumer-facing marketing support”.
