The company’s second quarter profits fell 41 per cent to €87m as sales for its Tesa adhesives business fell by 19 per cent to €177m on poor demand from the automotive and electronics sectors.
The company’s beauty business showed mixed results, with European sales also hard hit, but counterbalanced by gains in Asian markets.
Sales unlikely to surpass 2008 figure
Overall sales for the consumer unit, which holds the Nivea brand, fell by 1.8 per cent to €1.33bn during the quarter, which means the company is unlikely to surpass the sales figures it achieved during 2008.
Total sales for the quarter were down 4.1 per cent to reach €1.50bn, while sale for the first six months of the financial year were down 4.8 per cent to €2.94bn.
Breaking the consumer division sales down on a geographical basis for the second quarter, sales in Europe fell by 13 percent in the mainstay European market, whereas sales in Asia, Africa and Australasia rose 8.6 percent.
Latin America holds up Americas results
Sales in the Americas remained practically unchanged, driven by strong gains in Latin America and counteracted by lower figures in the US.
The company did however note that the sales decline for the European market in the first quarter had slowed when compared to the first quarter.
Looking ahead to the full year 2009 the company said that it expects the financial crisis to further impact its results during the second half of the year, and earmarked, Western Europe, the US, Russia and Japan as markets likely to be hardest hit.
Likewise the company also predicts that growth markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America are likely to continue their upward trend but at a lower rate of growth.