Britain's Cadbury Schweppes said this morning it expected further progress as it topped forecasts with a 13 per cent rise in its profit last year.
The maker of Dairy Milk chocolate, Trident gum and Dr Pepper drinks said it made an underlying pretax profit of £873 million sterling ($1.52 billion) in the 52 weeks to January 1st. Sales rose 7 per cent to £6.51 billion.
Analysts' profit forecasts ranged from £842 million to £857 million.
Cadbury also said its underlying operating margins had risen 0.3 percentage points to 15.9 per cent, below its target for 0.50-0.75 percentage points growth but better than the 0.25 percentage points some analysts had forecast.
The final dividend was raised 3 per cent to 9.0 pence, lifting the total dividend 4 per cent to 13.0 pence.
Cadbury shares, which have underperformed European peers by 9 per cent over the past 12 months, closed at 560 pence on Monday to value the business at £11.7 billion.
Since its financial year-end, Cadbury completed the sale of its European beverage arm for €1.85 billion ($2.21 billion) to private equity groups Blackstone and Lion Capital.