Toucan

Unilever pre-tax profit rose 39 per cent in the first quarter to €1.782 billion (£1.4 billion) on price hikes across its consumer products.

Underlying sales growth was up 7.2 per cent, with emerging markets growth particularly strong, the company said.

The Asia-Africa region saw sales increases of 14.2 per cent over the three-month period.

Price increases across the company's brands, which include Lipton tea, Magnum ice cream and Dove personal care products, have helped offset rises in commodity costs.

Group chief executive Patrick Cescau said: "We have had a good start to the year, with strong organic growth across our categories and an underlying improvement in operating margin.

"While it is early in the year, we now expect underlying sales growth in 2008 to exceed our three to five per cent target range."

Profit also included €517 million (£406 million) on disposals, mainly from the sale of the Boursin cheese businessand the extension of the Pepsi/Lipton joint venture for ready-to-drink tea.

Unilever said before the impact of restructuring and disposals the operating margin showed an underlying increase of 0.3 percentage points.

First-quarter profit beat the €950 million (£746.2 million) estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Shares rose as much as 75 cents, or 3.5 per cent, to €21.94 (£17.2) at 8:05, 7:05 BST, in Amsterdam.

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