France: Saint-Gobain has continued growing its sales across all businesses in the third quarter of 2017. Its overall sales grew by 4.1% year-on-year to Euro10.2bn in the quarter from Euro9.76bn in the same period in 2016. This trend extends to the year so far, with a rise of 4.3% to Euro30.6bn in the first nine months of 2017, from Euro29.3bn in the same period in 2016.
“The third quarter confirmed the upbeat trends seen in the first half, excluding the impact of the cyber-attack. All business sectors and regions advanced, including France. We continued to see a good price effect against a tougher basis for comparison, but not yet sufficient in all of the group’s businesses given the more inflationary raw material and energy cost environment,” said Pierre-André de Chalendar, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Saint-Gobain. He added that the group had signed 23 acquisitions since the beginning of the year, including the recently finalised Glava deal.
Sales from the group’s Interior Solutions division, which includes gypsum wallboard and insulation products, saw its saw increase by 3.6% to Euro5.11bn from Euro4.94bn. The group attributed the sales growth in this business to ‘healthy’ volume trends in Western Europe and in Asia and emerging countries. Trading in North America was reported as ‘stable’ but with a smaller pricing contribution in a more competitive environment. It added that pricing for the division lags behind rises in input costs such as a raw materials and energy.
