...November 7, 2023 Unilever PLC's third-quarter 2023 results show a slow rebound in volumes as its price increases moderate, in line with S&P Global Rating's expectations. Price growth continued to moderate as expected (5.8% for the third quarter compared to 8.1% for the first nine months of 2023). Despite this, overall volumes for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023 were still down by 0.6%, with underlying sales growth of 5.2% driven by price increases of 5.8%. Beauty and Wellbeing and Personal Care volumes were up more than 3%, with Home Care returning to small volume growth of 0.4%. Nutrition and Ice Cream, however, continued to struggle with volume declines partly because of the delayed commodity cost inflation cycle, which saw third-quarter prices increase by 9.8% and 8.2% respectively. In addition to pricing, the 10.1% volume decline in the Ice Cream segment was also on account of adverse weather, lower consumption, and private label share gains, and impacted the results of the European...
