Akzo Nobel, the global leader in paints and varnishes, has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2024, showing organic growth of 2% compared to the same period last year, despite a marginal decline in revenue of 1%. This performance is underpinned by sales volume growth in the paints and varnishes segments and profit margin expansion.
The company's revenue fell slightly to €2,640 million, but operating income grew by an impressive 43% to €261 million. Adjusted EBITDA also increased by 19% to €363 million and adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 11.5% in 2023 to 13.8% in 2024.
Greg Poux-Guillaume, CEO of Akzo Nobel, said, "Our first quarter performance combines sales volume growth in the paints and varnishes segments with margin expansion, as in the previous quarter. After a 2% volume increase in Q1, we are preparing for further growth in areas where we see market opportunities, such as in the powder paints segment, where we are adding new production lines."
The company has recently completed a major investment project at its plant in Bac Ninh province, near Hanoi, Vietnam. This includes five new powder coatings production lines and a line dedicated to water-based products for the consumer electronics market. This is an important step towards strengthening the company's position in Asia and a more sustainable production process.
Another notable milestone is reaching a new benchmark in Latin America, where all of the company's manufacturing facilities now run 100% on renewable energy, marking a significant advance in reducing carbon emissions across the entire value chain by 50% by 2030.
Akzo Nobel aims for 2024 to achieve adjusted EBITDA of between €1.5 and €1.65 billion and to reduce net debt to approximately 2.3 x EBITDA by the end of the year.
Akzo Nobel was founded in 1792 and is active in over 150 countries with major brands including Akzo Nobel, DULUX, Sikkens, Sadolin and Zweihorn. For further information, including consolidated financial statements, we recommend you to consult the full quarterly report, available at on the company website.
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