The Hungarian drinks group, Zwack Unicum, reported pre-tax profits for 2002 of HUF2.711 billion (US$11.99m), up 11.3% from HUF2.435 billion in 2001. Net sales rose by 5.63% from HUF17.593 billion to HUF18.583 billion. The company said it had seen a significant rise in wine sales.

“An almost one billion forint rise in net sales is divided equally between distributed and own-made products,” the company said. “Within distributed products, turnover of the wine division showed a significant rise, but sales from Diageo and other imported brands also grew faster than the market average.”

Zwack stated that the growth in its own branded product range stemmed primarily from low alcohol-carbonated drinks.