ORLANDO, Fla. — Tupperware Brands suffered a tough fourth quarter as the Orlando-based house wares seller watched sales drop 13 percent with the struggling world economy.
Tupperware’s sales for the fourth quarter dropped to $592.1 million and the company struggled particularly in South America and Europe, where sales were down 17 and 18 percent in U.S. dollars.
“We had a disappointing quarter as we lapped a tough comparison and continued to see an impact from economic and political headwinds in many of our units,” said CEO Rick Goings in a conference call with investors Wednesday morning.” While I don’t want to take away from the strong performances in a number of units, our internal actions did not overcome the impact of worse than expected externals in some of our units.”
Net income for the fourth quarter dropped as well by 29.2 percent to $58.1 million. Earnings per share were $1.15, 23 cents below analysts’ estimates.
Still, Goings said there was still positive signs even in some of its weaker markets during the fourth quarter, such as South America, where sales in local currency was up 22 percent and the biggest markets in Argentina and Brazil were particularly strong.
For the full year 2015, Tupperware’s sales fell 12.3 percent to $2.28 billion and net income dropped as well by 13.3 percent to $185.8 million.
“Given today’s environment, we’re making some defensive moves to allow us to perform financially and to play better offense in implementing our growth strategies,” Going said during the call. We remain confident the strong fundamentals of our business model coupled with these actions will set a path to success for our 3.1 million global sales force, our associates and for delivery of value to our shareholders.”
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