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Britvic has revealed that sales of its branded beverages fell during the second-half, as poor summer weather hit demand for soft drinks.

In a statement today the UK's second-largest soft drinks maker said that branded revenue for the 24 weeks to September 30th fell by 1.5 per cent on the previous year. Still drink sales fell by 0.3 per cent over the period, while carbonates dropped by 3.1 per cent.

However Britvic insisted that the result illustrated a "resilient" performance against the backdrop of the summer's bad weather and tough comparatives with 2006, when better than average seasonal weather and a high level of promotional activity associated with the football World Cup boosted sales.

The company added that its results excluded the contribution made from its recent acquisition of the soft drinks unit of the Ireland-based C&C Group.

Britvic also stressed that it had experienced "robust" trading in the 52 weeks to the end of September, reporting branded revenue growth of 3.7 per cent over the year – with the value of sales climbing to £702.5 million.

The drinks firm said it was still continuing to outperform the still drinks market in all key categories, with J20, Fruit Shoot and Robinsons squash consolidating their position as leading brands.

Britvic added that the recently-launched Robinsons pure juice brands, Smooth Juice and Fruit Shoot 100%, had performed in line with expectations given the poor weather.

The company, which has UK distribution rights for Pepsi and 7-UP, also stressed that it had delivered a "solid" performance in carbonates.

Britvic chief executive Paul Moody said: "We have actively grown market share across our key categories and our brands have performed very well, despite the poor summer weather which presented extremely difficult trading conditions for the soft drinks market.

He added that the company had continued to deliver on its strategy of improving average realised price and managing costs and subsequently expected to meet its target of increasing its operating profit margin by ten to 15 basis points.