April 22 (Reuters) - Packaging Corp of America beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Monday, boosted by higher prices, improved production and a recovery in demand for its corrugated packaging products.

Paper and packaging companies benefited from a surge in sales of goods and e-commerce retail during the pandemic, but their fortunes faded with economies reopening, leading to a year-long slowdown in demand.

However, sales volumes are starting to grow again this year as production and shipments improve, with European paper packaging giant Smurfit Kappa in February saying the worst of the demand slump appeared to be over.

Packaging Corp of America, which supplies packaging for a variety of industries including food and beverages, retail trade and chemical products, said its packaging segment saw shipments per day rise 11%, with corrugated products shipments seeing a 9.2% jump.

Lake Forest, Illinois-based Packaging Corp is also benefiting from a round of price increases it rolled out in January. The company said that it began implementing a price increase of $100 per ton across all paper grades effective April 1.

For the second quarter, the company expects earnings of $2.07 per share.

The company said that it expects rail rate increases during the first and second quarter to result in higher freight and logistics expenses.

Net sales at the company rose to $1.98 billion in the first quarter, beating analysts' average estimate of $1.91 billion, according to LSEG data.

Adjusted net income in the three months ended March 31 fell to $1.72 per share from $2.20 a year earlier, but exceeded analysts' expectations of $1.68 per share. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Anandita Mehrotra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)