Bay of Plenty based honey product company Comvita is reporting sales growth of 18 per cent more in the last six months than in the six month period ending September 30, 2010.

In a statement released to the NZX today, Comvita stated much of this growth is from Hong Kong and Australia.

This is in part attributed to the company's switch to a distributor model in Australia to all sales being conducted through an in-market office.

The growth in this six months bodes well for the company as historically it performs better in the second half year period.

In its NZX report, Comvita forecast for the year ended March 31, 2012, sales in the range of $91m-95m and a normalised net profit after tax of $7.3m-8.2m.

These compare favourable to 2011 figures of sales to the tune of $82m and normalised net profit after tax of $3.6m.

Comvita's export sales are now in excess of 80 per cent of its total sales.