The consumer goods giant, which produces products including Knorr and Flora, reported sales fell 2.7% to €48.4bn (£37.1bn).
Excluding the effect of acquisitions and unfavourable exchange rates, underlying sales rose 2.9%, conflicting analysts expectations of a 3.1% rise.
Paul Polman, chief executive officer at Unilever, said: “Despite a challenging year for our industry with significant economic headwinds and weak markets we have delivered another year of competitive underlying sales growth and margin expansion.
“This consistency, now established over the last six years, has been achieved during a high volatility as we have built a more resilient company.”
The company did post a 7% rise in pre-tax profit to €7.6bn and full year core operating profit hit €7.02bn.
Sales growth in the emerging markets, where the company makes more than half of its sales, slowed to 5.7%.
In Unilever’s food sector, savoury and dressings both grew but spreads declined due to lower consumer demand for margarine in Europe and North America. In the fourth quarter the company announced its intentions to set up a separate business unit for the European and North American spreads business, which is predicted to be fully operation by the middle of the year.
Polman concluded: “We do not plan on a significant improvement in market conditions in 2015. Against this background, we expect our full year performance to be similar to 2014 with the first quarter being softer but growth improving during the year.
“We remain focused on competitive, profitable, consistent and responsible growth.”