• The Waters division drives growth
• Capitalising on DANONE brands to boost innovations' pace
• New countries, new markets
• Asia: focus on functional waters

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The Waters division drives growth

:: DANONE’s Water line reported like-for-like growth of 14.8% in 2006 (against an average of only +8% since 2000). Operating margin edged down amid sustained rises in prices for packaging raw materials, but held close to 13% at 12.8%.

Groupe Danone subsidaries in every continent contributed to this first-rate performance. Heading the pack was Asia, representing half of divisional sales in value terms and 60% in volume, which benefited from an excellent performance by China and Indonesia, but also Japan. Latin America also excelled with sales up 20%, in particular thanks to Argentina and Mexico (+26% and +20%), and despite posting already excellent results in 2005 (+30%). Growth in Europe was driven by Germany and Spain (10% in each country) as well as Poland (+26%), followed, to a lesser degree, by Turkey and the United Kingdom. The French market encountered some difficulties despite growth in market share for Evian and Volvic.