The company expects organic sales for the group and its consumer business to grow by a high single-digit to low double-digit percentage range, compared with a previous forecast for mid-to-high single-digit growth.

First-half sales grew 12.3% from a year earlier to 4.9 billion euros ($5.35 billion), with an adjusted operating profit (adjusted EBIT) of 852 million euros, up from 710 million a year earlier.

"Both NIVEA and the Derma brands grew strongly in all regions and categories and more than offset the weaker performance of our luxury business," CEO Vincent Warnery said in a statement.

Nivea sales were up 17.9% from a year earlier, while sales of skincare brands Eucerin and Aquaphor jumped 26.1% on "exceptionally high" demand for sun protection, particularly in North and Latin America.

The company is seeing an accelerating growth in volumes despite a hike in prices earlier in the year, Warnery said in a call. He did not confirm whether a global heatwave in recent weeks was helping the trend in the sunscreen business.

"I think we kept with Nivea this extremely important value-for-money positioning," he said, adding the group plans to increase prices in the future "in a stronger way" than it used to before 2021, while keeping the range very large.

Shares were up 3.7% at 0849 GMT, set for their biggest percentage gains in more than a year.

Sales for Beiersdorf's luxury brand La Prairie fell 9.9% in the first six months, mainly due to disruption in Asian travel retail markets caused by the so-called "daigou" business, where Asian consumers buy goods abroad on behalf of domestic buyers, the company said.

"We anticipate that market disruptions in Korea and Hainan will likely normalise around the fourth quarter," Warnery said, referring to the daigou business.

On the general China outlook, he said the slower market recovery in mainland China might persist through the third quarter before showing stronger consumption trends starting in the fourth quarter.

(Reporting by Linda Pasquini in Gdansk and Jan C. Schwartz in Hamburg, editing by Maria Sheahan and Jane Merriman)