Dairy producer Danone's Activia brand has had a better-than-expected half-year. Thanks to new price increases, sales grew by 6.3%, with growth in all regions, except Russia, as specified by RetailDetail.

Overall Positive Progress

The first half of this year brought Danone a net income of 14.17 billion euros, representing an 8.4% increase on a constant basis. The volume decreased by 1.1%, the company said, but this was more than compensated by average price increases of 9.4%.

"In an environment that remains volatile and challenging, we continued to build on our track record, with a solid first half of the year," said CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique. The growth came from all regions.

In the second quarter, comparable growth was 6.4%, with Latin America (+10.8%) and China (+9.6%) particularly showing the strongest sales growth.

In Europe, sales grew by 6.5%. For the full year, Danone now expects comparable sales growth between 4% and 6%, with a moderate improvement in recurring operating margin.

Danone in Conflict with Russian Authorities

Meanwhile, Danone continues to fight for its Russian operations, which were nationalized by the government last week. At the helm of the Russian branch now seems to be Yakub Zakriev, the Chechen Minister of Agriculture and the nephew of the Chechen leader.

However, Danone believes it is still the legal owner and wants to protect its rights and employees. Nonetheless, the company is already recording a one-off depreciation of 200 million euros, in addition to another 500 million euros depreciation.