Sonoco’s Consumer Segment Sales Get Big Boost from Acquisitions and Higher Selling Price

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Hartsville-headquartered global packaging major, Sonoco published detailed financial and operating results of its four operating segments for the fourth quarter of 2018.

The Consumer Packaging segment sales totaled $573.9 million in Q4 ’18, as compared with $554.2 million in the corresponding quarter of 2017. The hike in selling prices during the quarter, coupled with the benefits of acquisitions contributed to the 3.6% rise in quarterly sales. Meantime, segment operating profit declined sharply by 34.7% over the previous year.

Sonoco’s Display and Packaging segment sales remained essentially flat. The Q4 ’18 sales of this segment were $141.2 million, as compared with $142.4 million in Q4 ’17. The segment reported operating profit of $8.4 million, as compared to operating income of $4.1 million a year before.

The Paper and Industrial Converted Products segment sales reported 8.8% growth over the previous year from $471.1 million to $512.4 million. The segment operating profit too was up from $45.6 million in Q4 ’17 to $55.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2018. The Conitex acquisition contributed to quarterly results.

The company’s Protective Solutions segment sales witnessed decline by 2.4% from the prior’s year quarter. The Q4 ’18 sales were $128.0 million. The operating profits too were down from $9.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 to $8.2 million in Q4 ’18, mainly on account of inflationary pressures and operating cost increases.