Ice cream sales for the Anglo-Dutch Unilever Group saw double-digit growth in the last quarter of 2012, primarily driven by volume.
Magnum completed a successful year by passing the EUR 1 billion milestone on the back of Magnum Infinity and the recent launches into new countries such as the Philippines. Cornetto and Max both grew strongly in 2012. Ben & Jerrys also performed well although we saw intense competition in take home ice crea,particularly
in the US.
Magnum continued to do well in ice cream in North America. In Latin America grew by 11.6% in the quarter, the sixth successive quarter of double-digit growth, driven by Argentina and Brazil, the latter benefiting from a strong ice cream performance. Overall global sales by Unilever were up 10.5% to EUR 51.3 billion, according to a year-end report by Paul Polman, chief executive officer.
"We continue to make good progress in transforming Unilever into a sustainable growth company," Polman said. "We have reported another quarter of good quality, profitable growth ahead of our markets. All categories and all geographies grew with a good overall balance between volume and price. Emerging markets again
contributed double-digit growth helping us exceed EUR 50 billion turnover, an important milestone in our journey to double the size of Unilever EUR 40 to EUR 80 billion whilst reducing our environmental impact."
