Henkel Reports Positive Sales Growth in First Quarter

Henkel CEO Hans Van Bylen stated, "Despite an increasingly challenging market environment, Henkel achieved positive sales growth both organically and nominally in the first quarter. At group level, developments in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margin and earnings per share (EPS) were within the scope of our full-year forecast." Van Bylen continued, "Overall, the first quarter of 2019 showed mixed results in business development. As expected, our Adhesive Technologies business unit was affected by a slowdown in industrial production across various sectors, though we anticipate improvements in this area in the second half of the year." Van Bylen said, "Moving forward, we will continue to adapt our structure to achieve our full-year targets while focusing on strengthening business performance, driving growth and investing in digitalization." Sales in the first quarter of 2019 grew 2.8% nominally, reaching EUR 4.969 billion. Organic sales growth, adjusted for currency fluctuations and the impact of acquisitions and disposals, was 0.7%. The contribution from acquisitions and disposals reached 0.6%. Currency fluctuations had a positive impact of 1.5% on sales. Sales in Western Europe declined 1.3% organically. Eastern Europe showed organic growth of 6.5%. Sales in the Africa/Middle East region grew 6.5% organically. Sales in North America achieved organic growth of 1.1%. In Latin America, this rate was 8.0%. In the Asia-Pacific region, sales were 8.8% below the level of the same quarter in the prior year.