The well-known Swiss food and drinks group Nestle SA - the maker of Nescafe, Jenny Craig, Perrier, and Haagen Dazs – Friday reported a full-year net profit of 10.4 billion Swiss francs; thereby marking a substantial plunge from the year-before profit figures of 18 billion francs.

Nestle, which had benefited from the sale of some of its stake in eye care company Alcon the earlier year, said that its sales during 2009 touched 108 billion francs; with the earnings per share being 2.92 francs. The 2008 sales of the company stood at 109.9 billion francs.

Noting that the results were along the lines of the projected figures by the analysts, CEO Paul Bulcke said: “With organic growth of 4.1% achieved in last year's challenging environment, we were able to grow substantially faster than our industry.”

Bulcke further added that the company’s growth over the years has largely resulted from the improvements that it has made to its products, as well as from the cost-cutting measures it has taken from time to time.

Nestle, which intends starting a new share buyback program so as to buy back shares worth 10 billion francs, will increase its per share dividend by 14.3 percent to 1.60 francs this year, vis-à-vis the earlier year.