On Thursday, Unilever unveiled its second-quarter report. The company’s sales fell just by 0.3% as compared to the expected 4.3% fall predicted by experts. The surge in sales is due to an increase in people eating up at homes amid the corona crisis, which boosted the revenue for the company’s products such as Breyers ice cream and Knorr soups.
Shares of the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate rose around 8.7% on Thursday morning as the consumer goods giant surprised everyone by showing positive sales figure amid the shutdown of restaurants, cinemas, schools and other outside venues, which contribute a significant part to its sales.
Notably, it is the first and only decline in quarterly sales of Unilever since the third quarter of 2004.
The US is the biggest revenue contributor to the company, and the sales in North America rose more than 7.3% in the six months of 2020. The best performing products of the conglomerate were Knorr soups, Suave beauty products, Hellmann mayonnaise cheese, and ice creams of Magnum, Breyers, and Klondike.
The overall decline is because of the interventions caused by the crisis. The company’s food sales service fell by more than 40%, and ice cream (Out of Home) sales fell by 30%, in the first half of 2020. However, E-commerce sales covered the plunge in sales, which jumped around 49%.