Danone has lowered its forecasts for 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak
The largest yogurt manufacturer in the world said the virus outbreak would result in a loss of sales of 100 million euros ($109 million) and primarily affect water business of the company in China in the first quarter.
Danone said that now it expects comparable sales to grow by 2-4% in 2020 and operating margins above 15%.
The previous forecast envisaged sales growth of 4-5% and an operating margin above 16%.
Danone reported that in 2019, sales totaled 25.287 billion euros ($27.48 billion), an increase of 2.6% on a comparable basis - near the lower end of the already reduced range of 2.5-3% announced in October. In 2018, sales increased by 2.9%.
Operating margin in 2019 increased by 76 basis points to 15.21% of sales, slightly higher than the 15.14% expected by analysts.
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