Confectionary maker Yowie Group has again slashed its full-year revenue growth forecast despite exceeding expectations in its return to Australian supermarkets.
The company on Wednesday revised its annual sales growth guidance for the full year to June 30, to 55 per cent, down from April's 70 per cent and 85-90 advised in February.
Chief executive Bert Alfonso said that despite the business performing on-track, the company had to reschedule the timing of two of its anticipated fourth quarter programs to start in the first quarter of 2018.
"The change to guidance resulted from the timing of the Canada launch and customer front-end programming change of Discovery World placement," he said in a statement on Wednesday.
"These programs are now being planned for Q1 (first quarter of) 2018."
The Canada launch was anticipated to contribute roughly $US1 million ($A1.3 million) in net sales in the fourth quarter of 2017, while the Discovery World launch, Yowie's largest customer, was predicted to contribute approximately $US500,000.
Yowie, which grew net sales from $US2million in 2015 to $US12.9 million in 2016, expects to reach $US20 million in the 2017 financial year.
"As a young company, unfortunately any change by a customer to the timing of a planned program in any given quarter will have a significant percentage change on our business," Mr Alfonso said.
"However ... we are outpacing all other brands in the confectionary plus space by a wide margin."
Australian retails sales of Yowie products, which returned to local supermarkets in February after being pulled from the shelves in the early 2000s, are running ahead of expectations with fourth quarter net sales reaching around $US750,000 on the tail of $US1.2 million in the third quarter.
The company said it expects sales growth in the 2018 financial year to be similar to 2017, anticipating it to be in the 55-70 per cent range.
"We remain confident regarding the prospects for the Yowie brand in both the US and selective international markets, and in our ability to grow rapidly in a highly competitive category," Mr Alfonso said.
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