LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Dettol and Lysol cleaning products, on Wednesday marginally beat full-year like-for-like net revenue expectations, helped by its nutrition and health businesses.
The company said it would target like-for-like net revenue growth of mid-single digits for 2023.
Abbott Laboratories early last year recalled dozens of infant nutrition products in the United States after customers complained of infants contracting bacterial infections.
Reckitt, its biggest rival at the time, ramped up production to fill the supply gap left by Abbott, helping drive full-year like-for-like net sales growth of about 23% in its nutrition business.
The impact from the shortage added about 17.5% to the unit’s growth, Reckitt said.
Overall, the price/mix for Reckitt’s products, which include Nurofen tablets, cold remedy Lemsip and Durex condoms, rose 9.8%, helping the company make up for a 2.2% decline in sales volumes driven by its business in North America.
The company said full-year like-for-like net revenue increased by 7.6% to $13.66 billion pounds ($16.47 billion), edging analysts’ expectations of a 7.5% rise, according to a company-provided consensus.
Reckitt’s own 2022 like-for-like net revenue growth target was 6% to 8%.
Full-year adjusted earnings rose 16.8% to 3.44 billion pounds.
($1 = 0.8294 pounds)
(Reporting by Richa Naidu; editing by Matt Scuffham and Jason Neely)
