Drinks giant Diageo has posted first half net sales of £6.04 billion in the six months to the end of December, despite the Irish and UK markets continuing to prove "challenging."
The group posted 5% organic net sales growth with 1% organic volume growth, and a 9% organic operating profit growth.
While it continues to grow in emerging markets, its European performance remains stagnant, with the company saying "in Western Europe our performance continued to be impacted by the very challenging economic environment."
Volumes fell by 3% in Europe as a whole, however, while 'Western Europe' posted a decline of 5%, Russia and Eastern Europe posted volume growth of 9% in the period. "We operate two very different businesses in Europe and to reflect this, from the second half we will be reporting Western Europe separately from the faster growing markets of Russia, Eastern Europe and Turkey,” the company noted.
