Manufacturing & Supply Chain

Pernod Ricard, the French spirits group expects it’s sales to gradually improve this year in its main markets of Europe and the US.

The group, which is the second biggest in the world, said that although their sales in Europe and the US is looking promising, its China sales have fallen 9% in the last three months and still remains difficult.

It also said that due to booming sales in the US and a strong economy in Europe where Jameson Whiskey did well, it helped the company to achieve a 3% rise in underlying sales, beating market expectations.

Pernod Richard sales in China, which makes 9% of group sales, were hit by wholesaler de-stocking and a slowdown in the less expensive Noblige cognac.

Also the Chinese governments crackdown on luxury gift-giving and personal spending by civil servants as well as the slowing economic growth has contributed to Pernod Richard’s decling sales in the country.

Pernod today forecast growth in underlying profit from recurring operations of between 1-3% for the year ending June 2016. That would compare with profit growth of 2% achieved in its 2014/15 fiscal year.

For the first quarter ended September 30, Pernod reported sales of €2.223 billion, a like-for-like rise of 3%.

The company-compiled average of analysts’ estimates was for underlying sales growth of 1.1% in the quarter.