Gruppo Campari has posted sales of €931.6m in the first nine months ending 30 September 2012, up 4.8%, against sales of €889.2m during the same period last year.

The Italy-based company also reported an organic growth of 2.2% in its sales in the reporting period.

The increase in sales was primarily due to exchange rate effect, which helped its sales grow by 2.6%.

In the US, the company posted an overall sales growth of 10.1%, with an organic increase of 6%.

The growth of sales in the US was mainly due to increased brand building activities on Wild Turkey, Skyy franchises, Carolans, Espolon, Cabo Wabo and Campari.

Gruppo Campari CEO Bob Kunze-Concewitz said the results in the first nine months of 2012 were impacted by a sudden change of consumption and trading conditions in Italy in September 2012, poor trading in the high seasonal summer period in Germany and a less favourable macro-economic environment in other Western European markets.

"On the positive side, we saw improving trends in Brazil, and achieved continued positive momentum in North America, thanks to heightened focus on brand building activities, and in Asia Pacific, where we are consistently outperforming the local market," Kunze-Concewitz added.

"Despite the tough economic environment in Western Europe we remain committed to brand building and exploiting opportunities in the key brand market combinations and will heighten our focus on cost optimisation opportunities.

"For the medium term, we expect our strong ‘long’ aperitifs franchise to overcome short term adverse economic conditions in Italy and Europe and to maintain our positive momentum across categories in the rest of the world."