Chocolate and soft drink giant Cadbury Schweppes reported a six per cent rise in pre-tax profits, boosted by an "outstanding" performance from its UK confectionery business.

The group said for the year to December 29, pre-tax profits, excluding restructuring and other costs, rose to £935 million from £886 million, while turnover was up seven per cent at £5.3 billion.

Chief executive John Sunderland said: "The most significant feature of the year has been the high levels of profitable volume growth achieved by our major confectionery businesses."

The business saw like-for-like sales volumes rise three per cent, driven by a six per cent rise in volumes at Cadbury Trebor Bassett in the UK.

Its drinks business, which makes Dr Pepper and Snapple, saw "solid profit" performance.

Cadbury's added acquisitions had also boosted the group.

During the year it spent £639 million buying businesses such as the Squirt drinks business in Mexico and Dandy chewing gum in Denmark.

In December, it announced it would spend 4.2 billion US dollars (£2.7 billion) buying chewing gum maker Adams from Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant. The deal is due to be completed in March.

Mr Sunderland said: "Acquisitions continued to strengthen our businesses and the purchase of Adams will make Cadbury Schweppes the world's leading confectionery company."