CADBURY Schweppes has announced its biggest sales growth in over a decade.
The company has overtaken Mars for the first time to become the world's largest confectionery producer with a 9.9 per cent world market share.
And the chocolate-to-drinks giant says it has benefited from the growth in new markets.
The company behind Dairy Milk, which has its UK base at Bournville, near Birmingham, saw revenues grow 6.3 per cent to é6.51bn in 2005. Underlying pre-tax profits for the year rose 12 per cent to é873m.
UK revenues lifted by only two per cent - though UK sales of the premium Green & Blacks organic chocolate range it bought in May 2005 improved 49 per cent.
It said the sale of its European drinks business and a string of non-core brands left it confident of a strong 2006.
Chief executive Todd Stitzer said around 80 per cent of its sales and profits were generated outside the UK with emerging markets accounting for 30 per cent of confectionery sales, it said.
These included Latin America which grew by 13 per cent and Africa, up by 12 per cent.
In the UK the two per cent rise in sales was described as "credible".
The firm said it had scaled back on UK brand innovation to focus on a major new IT system. Its main focus was on its wine gum brand Maynard and liquorice allsorts maker Bassett.
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