Colgate Palmolive expects sales volume to grow between 4 and 7 percent next year, driven largely by surging demand in emerging markets including Brazil, China, India and Russia, its chief executive said on Thursday.
"I've travelled this year to all of them at least once, if not twice, and I guess my sense is that the economic confidence in China, in Guangdong, or in India (and) Brazil is quite vibrant," Colgate CEO Ian Cook told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an economic forum in Guangzhou.
"Russia has hit a bump of course, but the indications are there of course that the markets are beginning to come back."
Analysts were expecting the company's sales to rise about 8 percent in 2010 to $16.45 billion from an estimated $15.27 billion in 2009.
Cook, head of the world's second-largest household products maker after Procter & Gamble by market value, said his company did not plan to increase the prices of any of its products next year.
He also said he expected volume growth of its products, including its namesake toothpaste, to be driven mostly by emerging markets.
(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Chris Lewis)
