Smurfit Kappa said that packaging used in e-commerce sales grew 25% in its main market Europe last year during the coronavirus crisis.
This helped the region's largest paper packaging producer beat its 2020 earnings guidance.
The paper and packaging group said its core earnings fell 9% to €1.51 billion in 2020, but that was still ahead of the €1.46-1.48 billion it had forecast in November and the €1.48 billion forecast by nine analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Smurfit Kappa said 2021 had started well amid an "increasingly positive" industry outlook driven by moves towards e-commerce and sustainability.
Profit become income tax for the year rose by 10% to €748m from €677m in 2019, while revenues dipped 6% to €8.530 billion from €9.048 billion in what Smurfit Kappa called the most challenging year in recent memory.
The company said that both Europe and the Americas had strong demand in the fourth quarter offsetting significantly higher input costs, predominantly in recovered fibre.
It said its board is recommending a final dividend of 87.4 cent per share (about €226m) for the year.
The group's clients include Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Nestle.
In November, Smurfit Kappa completed a share placing to capitalise on structural drivers of growth to invest in sustainability and to increase its operating efficiencies.
"SKG is now increasingly well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities, from a position of enhanced financial strength," the company stated.
The company said that in recognition of its employees' response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it made a "unique reward" in the fourth quarter to every employee.
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"Our product, paper-based packaging, is renewable, recyclable and biodegradable and plays a fundamental part in addressing our customers' sustainability challenges," Smurfit Kappa's chief executive Tony Smurfit said.
"In SKG, we produce our products in an ever more sustainable manner and we have, again, reset our targets in this area. We believe that all industries must do their part in contributing to a better world and we remain committed to using the best available technology to both help us reduce our impact on the planet and to help our customers meet their ambitions," Tony Smurfit added.
He said that driven by strong secular trends such as e-commerce and sustainability, the outlook for the industry is increasingly positive.
"SKG has positioned itself as the leading company within the industry, with great people, providing our customers with unique packaging solutions centred around innovation, efficiency and sustainability," he said.
"The inherent strength of our business together with the recent capital raise provides us with an unrivalled platform to accelerate our vision and the Group's next phase of growth and development," he added.
Mr Smurfit said although Covid-19 restrictions in many of the 35 countries it operates in had not impacted demand so far in 2021 after a strong fourth quarter. He also predicted a global economic boom once lockdowns are lifted and populations are vaccinated.
Last week the company said it was investing $40m in its paper sacks business in the Latin American market in response to growing market trends and the increasing need for environmentally sustainable paper sacks.
Shares in the company moved higher in Dublin trade today.
No negative Brexit impact for Smurfit Kappa
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Smurfit Kappa's Chief Financial Officer Ken Bowles said the company was now back on its normal dividend cycle.
Having deferred a dividend in March of last year, the company paid it in full at the half year results and had paid its normal dividend towards the end of the year.
On Brexit, Mr Bowles said Smurfit Kappa was not experiencing delays or difficulties in shipping product.
"We make paper and boxes in the UK and generally we sell within the UK so it tends to be ringfenced."
"Certainly we've been hearing anecdotal tales around shipping and containers being in the wrong place. Shipping costs have doubled or trebled across the year. There are costs involved for those trying to ship, but it's not affecting us," he said.
Ken Bowles said the company was awaiting a hearing at the Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes regarding the situation at its former operations in Venezuela.
The company's manufacturing bases there were seized by the government there in 2018.
"We lost control of the operations at that point and we lodged a claim with the court," he said.
"That will take a long time but we expect the case to be heard at some point."
