Britvic to beat top end estimates as UK guzzles

14th Jul 2009 07:09

Drinks group Britvic posted a strong rise in revenues in the 12 weeks to July 5 and said full year results would exceed expectations as UK consumers slaked their thirst with fizzy drinks during the hot weather.Total revenues were £249.1m for the three month period, an increase of 5.9% on the prior year. For the full 40 weeks to 5th July 2009, total revenue increased by 6.1% to £732.3m.Britvic's range includes Pepsi, which is sells under license from PepsiCo, Tango, J20 and Fruit Shoot.UK and international revenues in the quarter grew by 11.6% to £209.4m, reflecting UK still drinks growth of 8.3%, UK fizzy drinks growth of 14.4% and International growth of 17.5%. Like-for-like volumes are up by 3.3% in the quarter and by 4.7% year to date.The UK fizzy drinks business is doing especially well, Britvic said, with volume growth in the quarter of 10.4% against a take-home carbonates market up by 1.5%.Ireland remains the one area of concern. Third quarter revenues fell 20.2% with euro revenues down 24.3%. Sterling-based Irish revenues were down by 16.8% in the same period." Whilst Ireland continues to be a very challenging environment with no signs of improvement in the macro-economic conditions affecting the soft drinks market, our GB/International business in contrast continues to perform very strongly," said chief executive Paul Moody."As a result, the board now anticipate the full-year outcome is likely to be ahead of the peak of current market expectations," chief executive Paul Moody said.