By Anastasiia Kozlova

(Reuters) -Lindt & Spruengli lifted 2024 margin estimate and forecast further sales growth for 2025 on Tuesday, after reporting 7.8% organic growth for last year in a sign that price hikes have not deterred shoppers from splurging on chocolates.

The Swiss chocolate maker, which has been hiking its selling prices to pass record-high cocoa costs on to customers, said it expected to raise them further in 2025.

"Very robust sales growth, demonstrating Lindt's pricing power, which led to further market share gains," Vontobel analyst Jean Philippe Bertschy said.

With cocoa prices having nearly tripled over 2024, analysts are expecting the chocolate market to face an unprecedented cost headwind this year.

Cocoa prices rose by almost 180% last year, a second successive yearly increase after 61% growth in 2023.

"We believe that Lindt is very well positioned to navigate through 2025, which will be a very challenging year for the chocolate industry," Bertschy said.

The maker of Lindor chocolate balls said its sales were 5.47 billion Swiss francs ($5.97 billion) in 2024, broadly in line with market expectations. LSEG's IBES data showed an average analysts' forecast of 5.49 billion francs while AWP consensus stood at 5.46 billion francs.

The company expects its annual operating profit margin to be at least 16.0%, the top of its earlier forecast range.

For 2025, it sees organic sales growth of between 7% and 9% and a further improvement of 20–40 basis points in the operating profit margin.

"Overall, the 2024 delivery and 2025 outlook are likely to reassure and help the shares today," J.P.Morgan analysts said in a research note.

Lindt's shares rose 2.3% in early trading.

It will report full annual results on March 4.

($1 = 0.9158 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Anastasiia Kozlova in Gdansk, additional reporting by Amir Orusov; editing by Milla Nissi)