Britain's Cadbury, the world's biggest confectionery group, said its second-quarter sales growth is likely to be modestly higher than the 7% growth in the first quarter.
The group, which makes Dairy Milk chocolate and Halls cough drops, said in a trading statement that despite the challenging economic outlook and further increases in input costs in the second half it is confident of a successful outcome for 2008.
The company, which spun off its North American beverage business Dr Pepper Snapple last month, is therefore expecting first-half growth above the top end of its 4-6% target and margin growth of at least 1.5 percentage points.
'We're off to a strong start as a focused confectionery business and expect first-half revenues above our goal range and good progress on margins,' group CEO Todd Stitzer said in a statement.
But the group cautioned it expects some bias in revenue and margin growth towards the first half, with commodity cost increases for the year in the range of 5-6% being weighted towards the second half.
Cadbury is likely to see increased competition after Mars agreed to buy Wrigley in a $23 billion deal in April, which when completed will replace it as the world's biggest confectionery group.
