Mondelez beats first-quarter estimates on resilient demand, pricing strength

April 28 (Reuters) – Oreo-maker Mondelez International beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue and profit on Tuesday, helped by resilient demand for its chocolates and biscuits along with higher prices.

Shares of the Toblerone maker rose about 2% in extended trading after it also stuck to its annual organic revenue and profit forecast amid growing macroeconomic volatility.

“We have the Middle East situation in terms of extra costs under control,” Mondelez CFO Luca Zaramella said on a post-earnings call, adding that the company was “well-covered for oil and packaging costs” for the remainder of the year and into 2027.

Consumer companies globally potentially risk seeing a fragile demand recovery falter as soaring energy and commodity costs due to the Middle East conflict increase the chances of further price hikes.

Mondelez executives, however, said they do not see any change in consumer buying patterns yet.

With Mondelez having pushed through multiple rounds of price hikes during cocoa’s record rally in 2024, a global surplus that has driven down prices by around 70% so far this year has cushioned the chocolate maker’s margins.

The company’s volumes in its North American segment during the first quarter were down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier, but still better than a 3.1 percentage-point fall in the year-ago quarter.

Mondelez’s pricing rose 3.5 percentage points during the quarter, compared with a 6.6 percentage-point growth in the year-ago period.

The company’s quarterly revenue was also propped up by strong sales in Europe as well as emerging markets such as India, where sales grew 9% and 11.4%, respectively, from a year earlier.  

Mondelez reported first-quarter net revenue of $10.10 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $9.75 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

On an adjusted basis, the company earned 67 cents per share for the quarter, compared with estimates of 61 cents per share.

(Reporting by Koyena Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)