May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Unilever, the world's second-largest maker of food and detergent, reported profit that beat analysts' estimates and said revenue will exceed its forecast for the first time in six years on increased prices and sales of Dove soap and Lipton tea.

Unilever jumped the most in a year in London trading. First-quarter net income rose 33 percent to 1.34 billion euros ($2.1 billion) after a 517 million-euro gain, mostly from selling the Boursin cheese unit, London- and Rotterdam-based Unilever said today.

Chief Executive Officer Patrick Cescau raised prices 4.8 percent in the quarter, helping to offset higher costs for soybean and palm oil. Latin America, Asia and Africa led revenue growth as sales in Germany declined. The maker of Magnum ice cream is cutting 20,000 jobs over the next four years to catch up with Procter & Gamble Co., the biggest consumer-goods maker.

``Unilever has done very well by aggressively raising prices,'' said Corne van Zeijl, who manages about $1.4 billion, including Unilever shares, at SNS Asset Management in the Dutch town of Den Bosch. ``Because of the structure of the company, they will probably never be able to build brands like Danone and Nestle have and get similarly high prices for their products, but Unilever is getting close.''

Revenue gained 7.2 percent excluding takeovers, asset sales and currency movements, picking up from a year-earlier pace of 5.7 percent and beating the 5.9 percent estimate. Sales rose 14 percent in the Asia-Africa region and 9.6 percent in Latin America on that basis, as consumption grew in emerging markets.

Sales Forecast

The company said it will beat its goal for so-called underlying revenue growth, reaching ``the upper end'' of a 3 percent to 5 percent range.

Unilever rose 5.4 percent in London trading, cutting this year's slide to 7.3 percent, less than the 9.9 percent drop by Procter & Gamble, the maker of Olay skin creams. Unilever's gain today was the most since March 2007.

Antony Burgmans, the company's former co-chairman, said more than five years ago that 2002 growth for Unilever's top brands would exceed 2001's 5.3 percent pace. In subsequent years, the company fell behind P&G, unable to pass on all raw- material costs to customers and suffering from stagnant tea sales and declining market share in laundry detergent.

``Commodity-cost increases accelerated further in the quarter,'' the company said in the statement. ``We have continued to manage through this with a combination of innovation-led growth, savings programs and price increases.''

Unilever aims for cost savings of about 1 billion euros this year, Chief Financial Officer James Lawrence said on a call with analysts. Commodity costs will go up 400 to 500 basis points in 2008, he said. They increased 330 basis points in the fourth quarter.

Asia, Africa Gains

Operating profit as a percentage of sales rose 5.3 percentage points to 19 percent in the quarter, including asset- sale gains. Without those, operating margin grew 0.3 point.

First-quarter profit beat the 950 million-euro median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales were little changed at 9.57 billion euros. European revenue rose 2.3 percent, below the 4.1 percent median estimate.

``Asia and Africa more than made up for the slightly disappointing growth in Europe,'' said Ton van Ooijen, an analyst at Landsbanki Kepler in Amsterdam, who rates the stock ``reduce.''

Unilever today repeated its target to buy back shares worth at least 1.5 billion euros this year. It repurchased 604 million euros of stock in the first quarter and for another 200 million euros since then.

The maker of Magnum ice-cream bars sold Boursin for 400 million euros to Le Groupe Bel in January. Unilever also combined its organizations in the Netherlands and Belgium, and has said it will cut 350 U.K. jobs by the end of this year.

The company plans to sell assets with sales of 2 billion euros, including its North American laundry division, which has revenue of about 800 million euros. It is ``progressing with the disposal process,'' and has had interest from a number of parties, according to today's statement.

Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pantene hair-care products, said April 30 that fiscal third-quarter sales rose 5 percent excluding acquisitions, disposals and currency movements.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joram Kanner in Amsterdam at jkanner@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 8, 2008 12:20 EDT