This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
By the numbers: Q1 2025
Net sales: $1.71B
Up 30.6% year over year
Consumer packaging net sales: $1.07B
Up 83.4% year over year
Industrial packaging net sales: $558M
Down 6% year over year
Net income: $54M
Compared with $65M in Q1 2024
- Overview: CEO Howard Coker said on a first quarter earnings call Wednesday that Sonoco was pleased with Q1 performance, including in its growing consumer packaging segment. Sonoco’s balance sheet this year is being impacted by business purchases and sales in the last year, including the recent $3.8 billion acquisition of metal packaging business Eviosys, which it is integrating as “Sonoco Metal Packaging EMEA,” and the $1.8 billion transaction to divest its thermoformed and flexibles packaging business to Toppan Holdings, which closed at the start of this month.
- Rebalancing the business: Sonoco highlighted the significance of those changes in its earnings presentation Wednesday. Its business was 56% industrial and 44% consumer in 2005; today, it’s 34% industrial and 66% consumer. Sonoco is continuing to evaluate divesting ThermoSafe, hoping for a resolution by the end of this year, executives said.
- Eviosys integration: As it integrates Sonoco Metal Packaging EMEA, the company intends to treat its global metal packaging businesses as a single enterprise going forward. Sonoco projects $40 million in savings in 2025, part of its two-year synergies target of $100 million. “Working together, our global can businesses are also identifying long-term savings and commercial opportunities that will benefit our customers for years to come,” Coker said. In the U.S. in Q1, the metal packaging business’ double-digit growth was boosted by strength in aerosols and food cans with existing and new customers, he said.
- Economic environment: Coker noted that Sonoco’s consumer packaging business tends to perform well in times of economic stress, in part because consumers may purchase more canned foods. Conversely, the industrial paper packaging business has historically experienced a slowdown during past recessions, but “our industrial business in 2025 is significantly stronger, and the markets we serve have matured since the COVID recession of 2020,” Coker said. Still, Sonoco is not immune to an economic downturn, Coker said.
- Tariffs discussion: Sonoco’s manufacturing network is designed to serve local markets, “reducing our exposure to cross-border disruptions and tariff-related risks,” Coker said. Sonoco can also make price adjustments, he said. “Most importantly, our transformed portfolio is significantly more resilient, with over two-thirds of our sales now coming from consumer food packaging, a segment that has historically demonstrated strong performance across economic cycles,” he said.
- Outlook: Sonoco projects its 2025 pro forma sales will range between $7.75 billion and $8 billion (including one quarter of thermoformed and flexibles packaging, and a full year of ThermoSafe.) The company reaffirmed its full-year earnings guidance, as well as its operating cash flow projection of $800 million to $900 million. Priorities for the year include driving performance in the consumer and industrial businesses, managing risk in the current economic conditions, advancing the Metal Packaging EMEA integration, further optimizing global manufacturing and improving stock performance, Coker said.
