Diageo sales boost in Americas

The world's biggest distiller of Scotch whisky, Diageo, has seen sales growth in the Americas offset declines in Europe.

The company, which makes Johnnie Walker whisky and Smirnoff vodka, reported a 3% rise in net sales in the three months to the end of September.

Sales were strongest to Latin America and the Caribbean at 10.9% with those to North America increasing by 5.1%.

In contrast, revenues to Western Europe declined by just over 1%.

The company said that government policies in China led to a substantial fall in net sales, with revenues in Asia increasing by 0.6%.

Ivan Menezes, chief executive of Diageo, said: "Our performance in the quarter was good given weakness in some markets."

He added: "While there are headwinds in some emerging markets, including the impact of the government policies in China, there are also markets in which we continue to deliver robust growth and Diageo's strength is the diversity of our geographic breadth and broad category reach.

"We continue to make this strong business stronger and we remain committed to delivery of our medium term guidance."