By Matteo Castia 



  Danone SA reported on Thursday a slight fall in first-half net profit as the coronavirus hurt revenue and said it expects results to improve although uncertainty persists for the second half. 


  The French food company made a net profit of 1.02 billion euros ($1.20 billion) for the six months compared with EUR1.04 billion for the year-earlier period. 


  Revenue fell to EUR12.19 billion from EUR12.65 billion the previous year. In the second quarter, revenue decreased 8.3% to EUR5.95 billion. 


  "After a strong momentum in the first quarter with sales up 3.7%, sales decreased by 5.7% in the second quarter on a like-for-like basis, hit by the expansion of the Covid-19 pandemic into new regions, most notably Latin America," Danone said. 


  Write to Matteo Castia at matteo.castia@dowjones.com