Drinks giant Diageo (LON:DGE) said today that year-on-year organic net sales had risen by 2% in the nine months to March 31, with sales during the third quarter growing by 12%. The group, which owns brands including Johnny Walker and Guinness, said growth for the year to date had been driven broadly equally by organic growth and the impact of exchange rates movements since the same period last year. The news pushed the group’s share price up by 0.6% to 1088p.

Paul Walsh, Diageo’s chief executive, said: “As we had anticipated we delivered strong organic net sales growth for this third quarter. While we have seen some signs of recovery, albeit fragile in the mature markets and stronger in the emerging markets, our performance in the quarter benefited from comparison against a weak third quarter last year, from the earlier Easter this year and in some markets sales were brought forward in advance of excise duty increases.”

Mr Walsh insisted that consumer trends remained difficult to predict, especially in the mature markets. However, he said the group’s guidance for low single digit organic operating profit growth for the full year was unchanged and reflected its successful management of a tough environment in the first half.

In the year to June 30, 2009, Diageo posted net sales of £9.31bn and a pre-tax profit of £2.01bn.

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