Dirk Van de Put, the new CEO of Mondelez, claimed that 2017 was a ‘solid year’ for the company, with their organic sales during Q4 and the full fiscal year 2017 growing 2.4% and 0.9% respectively.
The company’s net revenues came close to hitting the $7bn mark in Q4, and almost $26bn in the full-year 2017.
During the quarter, Irene Rosenfeld’s replacement as of November 2017, claimed that “three of our four regions: Europe (5%), Asia, Middle-East and Africa (2.6%) and Latin America (4.2%), each delivered solid profitable growth. Our emerging markets are improving and we exited 2017 with the brick countries gaining some momentum.”
During Mondelez’s Q4 and 2017 respectively, emerging markets contributed 6.4% and 3.6% growths in revenue respectively.
However, the company’s North America performance was dented after a malware incident in June 2017 had a “significant negative effect”, Van de Put added.
As such, during Q4 and full-year 2017, net revenues for the region dropped by 2.9% and 0.1% respectively.
However, Van de Put said that investors should expect Mondelez’s North America operation to be back up and running in 2018.
“We’ll still see margin expansion in North America. We have a robust productivity opportunity there,” he said. “Volume leverage again will help as we get that business back to growth.”