Solid Progress by Britvic
UK and international soft drinks group Britvic has increased revenue by of 4.7% to £670.7 million on a constant currency basis, with volume growth of 3.9% to over 1 billion litres for the 28 weeks ended 13 April 2014. Group EBITA rose 12.9% to £60.5 million, driven by revenue growth and tight cost control. Britvic’s Average Realised Price (ARP) increased by 0.8%.
Revenue in Great Britainwas up by 5.0% as Britvic outperformed the GB take-home soft drinks market. In France, revenue was up 7%, with both volume and ARP growth. However, revenue in Ireland was down 5.2% as the consumer environment remained difficult.
Durng the first half, Britvic continued to focus on building sustainable profit and margin improvement. Strong progress was made on strategic cost initiatives and Britvic is on-course to deliver £30 million annual cost savings by 2016. Nationwide distribution of the Fruit Shoot brand in the USA has now been secured and a launch in India is on track, with in-market production due to commence shortly.
Simon Litherland, chief executive of Britvic, comments: “This has been another period of solid progress for our business, as we continue to implement the strategy we announced last year. We have delivered strong revenue, profit and margin growth in the first half of the year and our cost saving programme continues to gain traction across our business.”
He adds: “In addition, our international business is progressing well and the nationwide distribution of Fruit Shoot in the USA is an important milestone as we seek to exploit the international potential of our brands. Whilst we anticipate that the consumer environment is likely to remain challenging across our core markets, we remain confident of delivering EBIT in the range of £148 million to £156 million for the full year.”
