BERLIN - Nivea maker Beiersdorf expects its 2021 group sales to increase by close to 10% this year, it said on Thursday, as strong demand for adhesives and its dermatological brands pushed its first-half revenues above pre-pandemic levels.
This is the momentum we want to continue using, Vincent Warnery's new CEO Beiersdorf said in a statement.
Under his predecessor Stefan De Loecker, Beiersdorf invested more in its consumer business to revive down-to-earth sales growth and bought the U.S. sun care brand Coppertone from Bayer for $550 million to strengthen its position in North America.
Organic sales jumped by 28.3% in the first quarter, bringing growth for the second half to 16.3%. Six-month revenues of 3.87 billion euros were a tad above consensus of 3.82 billion according to IBES Refinitiv data.
The Hamburg-based firm saw positive sales growth for full year, having previously said only that it saw high single digit sales growth for 2021.
Beiersdorf's first-half margin in EBIT increased from 13.7% to 15.3%. For the full year, however, he expects the margin to remain flat from 2020 due to rising material prices and investments in digitisation and innovation.