London, Oct 15 - Diageo Plc, the world's biggest alcoholic drinks group, said on Wednesday sales growth slowed in its first quarter but it maintained its full-year profit target despite the financial crisis and lower global growth.
The British maker of Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Guinness beer said its underlying sales grew by 6 percent in its July-September first quarter after an 8 percent sales rise in its previous financial year to June 2008.
The London-based group held its goal to grow underlying operating profits by 7 to 9 percent for its current year to June 2009 after it had cut the target in late August from 9 percent blaming an economic slowdown and rising input costs.
Chief Executive Paul Walsh said despite the recent turmoil on financial markets the group had not seen any significant adverse changes in its markets in the July-September quarter.
The group was giving a trading update ahead of its annual general meeting later this afternoon.
"As we anticipated, global GDP growth has slowed since the beginning of the financial year. Although these challenging economic trends have affected our business, the strength and diversity of Diageo has delivered a good trading performance in the first quarter," Walsh said in the update.
Diageo shares drifted down to stand 3.8 percent lower at 862 pence by 1225 GMT after trading around 867 just before the update in a London stock market off 4.2 percent.
"Overall we see this statement as neutral to reassuring," said industry analyst Matthew Webb at brokers Cazenove.
"However, with the key pre-Christmas trading period still to come, and economic conditions continuing to deteriorate, we still believe that Diageo inevitably faces an uncertain outlook for the balance of the year," Webb added.
Diageo shares have slipped from a high of 10.68 pounds in early September in the face of a global market slump following the financial crisis but still outperformed the FTSE 100 index .FTSE by 4 percent helped by its defensive qualities.
In its previous financial year, the group reported sales rose 8 percent to 8.1 billion pounds ($14.2 billion) and operating profit increased 9 percent to 2.3 billion pounds in the 12 months to end-June 2008.