Pernod forecast growth of 2 percent to 4 percent this year.
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Sales for the full-year grew one per cent to reach €8.68bn, though fourth quarter sales fell by seven per cent.
Irish Distillers, the Pernod Ricard subsidiary that owns Jameson and a number of other well-known whiskey brands such as Powers, Redbreast and Green Spot, said its flagship product recorded double- and triple-digit growth in 62 out of the 130 markets in which it is available. Sales in its Americas region, dominated by the USA market, fell 9% in the quarter, while its Asia/Rest of World regions dropped 10% and sales fell 2% in Pernod’s home region of Europe.
Meanwhile, on-trade spirit sales saw growth of 2% in volume nationally, driven by city centre accounts across the country performing well.
The company said this was largely due to domestic market weakness, particularly in China and Korea, and currency fluctuations.
The company created a new Global Travel Retail division earlier this year, reporting directly to headquarters. While Absolut, Chivas Regal and Martell all declined by 4%. The whiskey, which is already being exported to 30 markets, resulted in incremental value growth for the brand of 11 per cent previous year.
“FY16 was a solid and encouraging year, delivering profit from recurring operations in line with guidance while maintaining investment and implementing significant initiatives to deliver our medium-term strategy and objectives”, said Alexandre Ricard, chairman and CEO of Pernod Ricard.
The group, which plans to cut costs by 400 million euros ($446 million) by 2020, predicted underlying profit growth from recurring operations of between 2 percent and 4 percent in its fiscal year through June 2017, after last year’s 2 percent growth.
“For full year FY17, in a contrasted environment, we expect to continue improving our business performance year-on-year vs. FY16, supporting priority markets, brands and innovations and focusing on operational excellence”.
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Organic sales growth for Jameson was 16% while Perrier-Jouët posted 9% organic growth during the year.
