Berry Global, a plastic packaging manufacturer, has reported net sales of $3.16bn in the third quarter (Q3) of financial year 2024 (FY24), down by 2% from the $3.22bn reported in Q3 FY23.
This downturn was primarily due to the pass-through of lower resin prices, which negatively impacted sales by 3%.
Despite the decrease in net sales, Berry Global's operating income rose by 13% to $303m, compared to $267m in the third quarter of FY23.
This growth was largely driven by organic volume growth and a positive price-cost spread, a result of the company's cost reduction initiatives.
Its earnings per diluted share for the quarter was $1.65 compared to $1.18 in Q3 FY23.
Net sales for the company’s Consumer Packaging International segment experienced a 7% decrease in net sales, totalling $959m.
The International division's operating income, however, increased by 16% to $79m.
In contrast, the North American Consumer Packaging segment saw a 4% increase in net sales to $831m, propelled by organic volume growth and higher selling prices due to an improved product mix.
The operating income in this region also saw a 16% increase to $103m.
The Flexibles packaging business of Berry Global witnessed a 2% decrease in net sales, amounting to $724m, mainly due to a 4% negative impact from lower selling prices.
Berry Global CEO Kevin Kwilinski said: "Our strong financial results in the quarter were consistent with our expectations and our teams executed very well. This quarter, I’d like to emphasise our team’s outstanding performance in achieving volume and earnings growth, as well as our progression in reducing our leverage and optimising our portfolio.
“We are confident in the strength of our underlying businesses, our customer value proposition, and our execution capabilities. We expect business momentum to continue as we demonstrated in the June quarter, including delivering, low-single-digit volume growth in the fiscal fourth quarter and exiting fiscal 2024 at or below our 3.5x leverage target.”
In the second quarter of FY24, Berry Global announced a 6% decline in net sales to $3.07bn, compared to $3.28bn in the same period in FY23.
