PERSONAL care to foods group Unilever said it achieved strong growth throughout the year, despite difficult markets.

The Anglo-Dutch conglomerate announced a 5% increase in revenues during 2011 of £38.7bn and a 2% increase in pre-tax profits, at current exchange rates, of £5.2bn.

It spent almost as much, £5.1bn, on advertising and promotional spend, it revealed in figures for the year today.

Throughout the year the group has been involved in a long-running battle with UK trade unions Unite and GMB over the axing of its final salary pension scheme.

Industrial action and stoppages have hit production at many plants, including its sites at Port Sunlight, Warrington and Ewloe, in North Wales.

Chief executive Paul Polman said today: "In 2011 we have made significant progress in the transformation of Unilever to a sustainable growth company despite difficult markets and an unusual number of significant external challenges.

"We continue to implement our strategy with discipline, taking the right decisions for the long term, however difficult they may be in the short term.

"Whether it be our focus on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, the extension of our brands into new markets with the associated up-front investment, or the actions to remove unsustainable cost burdens from our structure, we are doing the right things to strengthen Unilever for the longer term."

He added: "Our overall performance was driven by outstanding growth in emerging markets and the home care and personal care categories.

"We invested heavily in our brands and exit the year with positive momentum. In foods, while price increases have impacted volumes, we have grown in line with our markets and gained share in many of our key businesses.

"We expect the external macro-economic environment to remain difficult in 2012 and input cost headwinds will persist, although to a lesser extent than in 2011.

"Within this challenging context our over-riding priority is to manage our brands for the long term health of the business while delivering: profitable volume growth ahead of our markets, steady and sustainable core operating margin improvement and strong cash flow."

Liverpool stockbroker Panmure Gordon reiterated its 'buy' recommendation for the stock, noting its "impressive" home and personal care growth during the final quarter.

Analyst Graham Jones said: "The outlook looks for steady improvement in core margin and the strong performance in home and personal care is encouraging."