Agthia Group, one of UAE’s leading food and beverage groups, said net profit for the first six months of 2012 grew 38 per cent year-on-year to Dh56 million.
Sales increased 15 per cent reaching Dh642 million.
Rashed Mubarak Al Hajeri, Chairman of Agthia Group, said: "We are pleased with Agthia's sales, volumes and profit growth across all divisions in the first half of 2012. The commodity market volatility and regional unrest are certainly challenging, yet we are progressing on our long term strategy and we are looking forward to a promising second half as well.”
Ilias Assimakopoulos, Chief Executive Officer of Agthia, said: “During the first of half of this year, we have focused on both growing our core businesses while driving penetration and distribution of our recently launched brands. Various marketing activities have been initiated to address the softer than expected consumer off-take of the newly introduced Yoplait and Chiquita products. Our focus for the remainder of the year will be to continue the growth momentum and consolidating the newly introduced products, driving the core businesses, expanding geographically while addressing the challenge of higher input cost by pursuing cost saving initiatives. We are optimistic and expect another year of good business performance in 2012.”
Agri Business Division (ABD) net sales grew 13 per cent year on year reaching Dh426 million, driven by 14 per cent volume increase.
Consumer Business Division (CBD) delivered strong consistent sales growth of 19 per cent year on year reaching Dh216 million. Net profit declined slightly by four per cent reaching Dh14.1 million.