Lindt's price hikes drive yearly sales beat

By Paolo Laudani and Bernadette ⁠Hogg

Jan 13 (Reuters) - Swiss ⁠chocolate ‍maker Lindt & Spruengli said on Tuesday its sales grew 12.4% organically in 2025, slightly beating market expectations, as it raised selling prices by ‍19% to pass higher cocoa costs on to customers.

The maker of chocolate ​bunnies and teddy bears reported sales of 5.92 billion Swiss francs ($7.43 billion), compared with 5.90 billion ​francs seen in an LSEG poll of analysts.

Sales volumes declined around 6% over the year, calculations from Zuercher Kantonalbank showed, as the price increases made some shoppers cut back on premium sweets.

"For ​2026, there remain risks that volumes will be negative or that price development will not be in the mid-single-digit percentage range," Zuercher analysts said, although they noted ​Lindt had already implemented most of the price hikes.

Lindt, which will report full annual results on March 10, guided ‌for an operating profit (EBIT) margin increase at the lower end of its 20-40 basis point range for the year.

The company's registered shares, ​which carry voting rights, opened almost 2% higher, ⁠but reversed course and were down 2% by 1019 GMT.

INVENTORIES IN EUROPE

Organic sales growth in Europe was 13.6% in the second ‌half of 2025, according to calculations by Bernstein. This was ahead of scanner data, which had shown growth of around 2% until the end of November, the analysts said in a ‌research note.

This data is recorded by barcode scanners at checkout, showing what was bought, when, where ‌and for how much.

"We expect that the main question on investors' minds is likely to be: how is it possible that Lindt has reported such resilient European growth despite the weak scanner ‍data," the analysts wrote.

They raised a question of whether there was a risk of large inventory build-up in Europe and warned ⁠that de-stocking could weigh on 2026 volumes even without it.

However, the company dismissed these concerns when contacted by Reuters.

"We currently do not see the risk of an inventory build‑up beyond normal seasonality," a Lindt spokesperson said.

($1 = 0.7971 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Paolo Laudani and Bernadette Hogg in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)

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