Danone beats quarterly sales forecasts

STORY: Danone posted stronger-than-expected first-quarter sales on Thursday (April 18), helped by price hikes.

The French dairy giant also said pricing negotiations with retailers have ended for this year, and consumers didn't have to fear more big increases.

The maker of Activia yoghurt and Evian water said this meant it could gradually go back to business as normal.

Danone is one of several major consumer goods firms which have sharply raised prices over the past two years.

It's done so to manage costs driven higher by inflation, but that has led to difficult talks with grocers like Carrefour and Tesco.

Danone increased prices by 2.9% during the first quarter.

That was its smallest hike in at least two years, but slightly ahead of analyst expectations.

In the previous quarter, the company had raised prices by 4.3%.

Like-for-like sales rose 4.1% to $7.25 billion in the first quarter, beating expectations.

Danone stuck to its goals for sales growth this year.

Investors liked what they heard, and company shares rose 3% after the market open, before easing back.