Nestlé releases results for first quarter of this year
Nestlé released its first quarter results for 2025 with total reported sales increasing by 2.3% to CHF 22.6 billion with organic growth for the quarter coming in at 2.8%, in a period of what Nestlé said was a time of fragile consumer confidence.
"In an environment of heightened macroeconomic and consumer uncertainty, Nestlé delivered organic sales growth of 2.8%, with RIG of 0.7% and pricing of 2.1%,” said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé CEO in a press release accompanying the financial reporting. “Growth was broad-based across markets and categories, with improving market share trends across many businesses, particularly our billionaire brands. We have made further progress in delivering our strategy. Our ‘Fuel for Growth’ cost savings program is on track, providing the resources to help accelerate performance.”
Freixe added that in the quarter Nestlé invested in strengthening its core business, and “achieved good consumer traction in the roll-out of our ‘big bet’ innovations such as Nescafé Espresso Concentrate and saw some encouraging early improvements in our largest underperforming business cells. We are continuing to make changes throughout the organization to increase alignment and focus, with steps to harmonize our structure in Zone Europe and enhance our capabilities in R&D.”
“Performance in the first quarter was in line with our expectations, and our 2025 guidance remains unchanged,” he continued. “This is based on our assessment of the direct impact of current tariffs and our ability to adapt. The indirect impacts – on consumers and customers, as well as currencies and commodity prices – remain unclear at this stage. Overall, the situation continues to be dynamic, with heightened risks and uncertainty. Our 277,000 committed colleagues are focused on successfully executing our strategy: driving efficiencies and investing for growth to accelerate our categories and improve market share."
Anna Manz, chief financial officer, with Nestlé said in a conference call that in the Americas “macroeconomic uncertainty has made for a challenging environment with consumer confidence fragile.”
“In that context, flat organic growth with positive RIG in North America was a very solid performance, and we grew nicely in Latin America,” she continued.
Growth was driven by strong pricing actions in confectionery and coffee, and the company’s confectionery business posted solid results and market share gains, she added.
For Nestlé’s popular Nespresso brand, Manz said it had a strong first quarter with growth driven largely in the United States. In other market areas, Nespresso saw a modest decline in sales, driven by price increases for the coffees and she did warn of uncertainty ahead due to the price of coffee increasing.
“As you look ahead, keep in mind that our consumers purchase Nespresso less frequently than our other categories, so it will take a while to see the consumer impact of the price increases. All of that said, it was a good quarter for Nespresso. And this is also true of the broader Nespresso ecosystem, including Starbucks by Nespresso, where we continued strong momentum and added a further 130 bps to growth.”
