Despite the continued challenging market environment, Henkel delivered a strong second quarter, according to the company. "We significantly increased both sales and earnings with all our three business sectors contributing. Our adjusted return on sales has risen to 15.4 percent for the first time," said Henkel CEO, Kasper Rorsted. "While all regions reported growth, once again our emerging markets made an important contribution. The share of sales in emerging markets rose substantially reaching 45 percent for the first time."
Looking forward to the second half of the year, Rorsted stated: "We expect the overall economic environment to remain difficult. Hence we will further improve our competitiveness. We will continue to adapt, simplify and accelerate our processes in order to respond more flexibly and efficiently to the volatile market environment in which we operate."
Rorsted confirmed Henkel's previously stated guidance for fiscal 2013: "We expect organic sales growth to be between 3 and 5 percent in the full fiscal year. We expect our adjusted EBIT margin to increase to about 14.5 percent and adjusted earnings per preferred share to grow by about 10 percent."
At €4,286 million, Henkel's sales for the second quarter 2013 showed an increase of 1.9 percent versus the prior-year quarter. Henkel continued to see strong headwinds from currency effects, mainly coming from Japanese Yen, US Dollar and Russian Ruble. Organic sales, which excludes the impact of foreign exchange and acquisitions/divestments, rose by 4.0 percent.
All three business sectors contributed to this solid performance: Laundry and Home Care recorded strong organic sales growth of 5.8 percent. The Beauty Care business sector achieved a solid organic growth rate of 2.8 percent. And the Adhesive Technologies business sector also registered solid growth with organic sales rising by 3.6 percent year on year.
