UPDATE 2-Unilever Q2 sales miss estimates hurt by rain in Europe

(Adds detail on Europe impact, emerging markets)

By Siddharth Cavale

July 25 (Reuters) - Consumer goods giant Unilever Plc reported slightly weaker-than-expected quarterly underlying sales growth on Thursday, hit by wet weather in Europe, but kept its full-year sales targets intact.

The company said it continues to expect full-year underlying sales growth to be in the lower half of its multi-year 3% to 5% target range and operating margin to reach 20% in 2020.

The maker of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry's ice cream said underlying sales rose 3.5% in the second quarter, but that missed analysts' average estimates of a 3.7% rise, according to a company-supplied consensus.

Wet weather in Europe dampened ice-cream sales following two straight seasons of hot summers.

Average rainfall across 12 European cities was three times higher in April and May than the prior year, while average hours of sunshine were down between 9 and 25 percent in the two months, a Jefferies analysis showed.

Ice cream makes up 13% of Unilever's Group sales, and about 20% of its European sales annually. In the second quarter that number goes up to 30% or about 1 billion pounds in sales, Jefferies analyst Martin Deboo said in a pre-earnings note.

Growth mainly came from the emerging markets, where the company continued to win volume share in markets including Indonesia, Philippines, India and China, Unilever's chief financial officer said on an earnings call with media.

Underlying sales in emerging markets rose 7.4% in the quarter, while they fell 1.6% in developed markets. Emerging markets contribute 60% to Unilever's overall sales.

Turnover inched lower to 13.7 billion euros ($15.25 billion).

($1 = 0.8981 euros) (Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in London and Shashwat Awasthi in Bengaluru; editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Jason Neely)