Nestle posts 7.8% rise in nine-month sales

LONDON: Nestle posted lower-than-expected nine-month sales growth on Thursday as higher product prices made shoppers balk and hurt volumes.

Organic sales, which exclude the impact of currency movement and acquisitions, rose 7.8% in the nine months ended September, the maker of Maggi stock cubes and Nescafe coffee said. Analysts had on average expected organic sales growth of 8.1%.

Total reported sales decreased by 0.4% to 68.8 billion Swiss francs ($76.54 billion).

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Nestle’s 8.4% price increase was below the average analyst estimate of 8.6%.

Real internal growth - or a measure of sales volumes - fell 0.6%, meeting expectations.