Consumer goods giant Unilever on Thursday said a rush to buy cleaning products to prevent the spread of Covid-19 was not enough to stave off the virus’s impact on other sales.
The owner of the Domestos and Cif brands said cleaning agent sales had boomed as shoppers rushed to supermarkets to stockpile, but reported flat sales for the first quarter.
This was in part due to a tough ice cream market, where Unilever owns the Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s brands. Beaches and parks have been closed to large groups, limiting sales.
Its home care division saw sales rise 2.4%, but its food and refreshment arm reported a 1.7% sales decline.
Total sales rose 0.2% to €12.4 billion (£10.8 billion) at the company which recently launched a Vaseline anti-bacterial hand cream in the UK.
Chief executive Alan Jope warned of further uncertainty ahead.
He said: “The unknown severity and duration of the pandemic, as well as the containment measures that may be adopted in each country, mean that we cannot reliably assess the impact across our markets and our business.”
Investec analyst Alicia Forry said flat group sales was “probably marginally disappointing to the market given the stocking-up boost”.
The FTSE 100 firm pulled full-year sales forecasts. It had previously guided 2020 growth in the lower half of a 3-5% range.
Shares in Unilever lost 214p, or 5%, to 4029p.
The Anglo-Dutch firm pointed to mixed consumer behaviour across the globe in the quarter to March 31, and Jope said: “Demand patterns are changing.”
He added: “We are adapting to new demand patterns and preparing for lasting changes in consumer behaviour, in each country, as we move out of the crisis and into recovery.”
Unilever saw the Chinese market slow from January, while lockdowns came in Britain and Europe later.
