Pallet supplier Brambles has downgraded its earnings expectations despite overcoming a tough trading period with a rise in first half profit.

Brambles on Thursday reported a nine per cent rise in net profit for the six months to December 31 to $US239.50 million ($A224.92 million), from the previous corresponding period.

Sales revenue was up 34 per cent to $US2.37 billion ($A2.23 billion.

Chief executive Tom Gorman said that despite challenging economic conditions, Brambles continued to expand by adding new customers.

“We have positive momentum with our growth strategy of diversifying our range of products and services and expanding geographically,” Mr Gorman said on Thursday.

Brambles downgraded its guidance range for the full financial year for underlying profit of between $US1.050 billion and $US1.080 billion ($A986.10 million and $A1.01 billion) based on 30 June 2011 foreign exchange rates.

Mr Gorman said the guidance remained subject to any unforeseen circumstances.

The company said the increase in revenue reflected the inclusion of the IFCO Systems businesses acquired in March 2011, other acquisitions and continued new customer growth from the business segments of Pallets, Reusable Plastic Crates (RPC) and Containers.

Morningstar analyst Peter Rae said the result was broadly in line with market expectations.

“The themes in this report are pretty much the same as they’ve been in place for a while,” Mr Rae said.

“The developed regions are continuing to struggle but the emerging regions are moving ahead.”

He said future earnings may need to be downgraded due to a weakening euro and pound.

Brambles declared a 20 per cent franked interim dividend of 13 Australian cents per share, unchanged from the prior interim dividend.

Its share price closed down 27 cents, or 3.71 per cent, at $7.00 on Thursday.

Mr Rae said the weaker share price had more to do with weakness across the local stock market on Thursday rather than Brambles’ earnings report.