Unilever Q1 beats forecast with emerging boost

Consumer goods giant Unilever beat forecasts with a 4.1 percent rise in first-quarter underlying sales driven by Chief Executive Paul Polman's focus on volume growth and helped by strong emerging market growth.

Polman's fourth successive quarter of volume growth came after cutting prices and raising marketing, and despite sluggish recovery and tough competition he is still looking to drive volume growth and increase profit margins in 2010.

Emerging markets were the star performer with Asia and Africa growing sales 7.6 percent and Latin America growth over 10 percent with Unilever having the largest exposure to these high-growth markets amongst its rivals as they account for half its sales and profits.

The world's third-biggest food and consumer goods group and maker of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Knorr soup and Dove soap reported its underlying first-quarter sales rise of 4.1 percent beat consensus of 3.2 percent and 2009's 3.5 percent growth.

Anglo-Dutch Unilever Plc/NV said quarterly volumes rose 7.6 percent, after price cuts of 3.3 percent, compared with a consensus of 5.2 percent reflecting the strong growth seen from rivals Nestle and Danone.

Unilever's sale rise of 4.1 percent was behind 6.5 percent at Nestle and Danone's 7 percent, but Unilever's volume growth of 7.6 percent beat Nestle's 4.8 percent after Unilever cut prices last year to become more competitive.

Unilever's underlying quarterly earnings rose 32 percent to 0.34 euros per share, beating a consensus forecast of 0.32 euros collated by ThomsonReuters I/B/E/S, while operating margins rose 60 percentage basis points helped by on-going cost cutting and lower commodity costs.

(Reporting by David Jones)