(AFP / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN)
Seb’s sales experienced “robust” growth in the first quarter, marked by unfavorable exchange rate effects, the French household appliances group said on Thursday, saying it was targeting an operating margin “close to 10%” for the whole of 2024. .
The company’s turnover increased by 3.9% year-on-year in published data, to 1.89 billion euros. At constant exchange rates and perimeter, growth even reached 7.3%, but it suffered from a “penalizing” currency effect. In a press release, Seb hoped to see this trend “ease over the months”.
It is sales of professional equipment which, although a minority in turnover, drove the upward trend, recording a jump of 23.3% over one year to 258 million euros, “supported by the delivery of certain large contracts, particularly in China”, noted Seb.
For their part, sales of “consumer” equipment grew more modestly (+1.4%) to 1.63 billion euros, added the company, attributing this increase in particular to the “deployment of new products ” as well as “the vigor of several ranges such as oil-free fryers, vacuum cleaners [polyvalents]automatic coffee machines, steam generators, steamers and fans.
Seb recorded contrasting performances depending on the world’s regions, with activity in the Americas zone (13% of turnover) jumping 15.8%, supported in particular by “sales of fans in Brazil and Colombia, under the effect of the El Niño phenomenon.
The Europe, Middle East and Africa entity, which represents 41% of Seb’s activity, achieved 3.4% growth, despite a 1.8% decline in sales in Western Europe for consumer products.
Asia, which accounts for a third of sales, fell by 5.8%, a situation attributable in particular to the depreciation of the yuan against the euro, and while the environment is “unpromising” in China. .
Seb, who achieved an operating margin of 5.8% in the first quarter (+2.2 points over one year), sees this ratio reaching a level “close to 10%” over the whole year, expecting to its consumer products “a more widespread return to sales growth in mature countries, a gradual recovery during the year in China and the maintenance of good momentum in emerging countries”, again despite the effects of negative exchange rates.