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27.CTW20.Colgate-Palmolive2

Toothpaste tubes have long frustrated green-minded consumers. The hybrid composition that makes such tubes squeezable—a mixture of laminated plastic and aluminum—also makes it impracticable to recycle most of the 20 billion tubes that consumers discard each year.<br />
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Colgate-Palmolive, which claims 41% of the global toothpaste market, poured five years of research into this puzzle, and in 2019, the effort paid off. Colgate’s new recyclable tube is made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the recyclable plastic found in shampoo containers and milk jugs. (A key phase of the research: grinding down the tube prototypes and recycling them as new bottles.) This year, Colgate introduced the tubes in multiple brands and it will soon use them for Optic White, which alone accounts for 8.5% of U.S. toothpaste sales. The company aims to make 100% of its packaging recyclable by 2025. In the meantime, it’s sharing the HDPE design on an open-source basis, so others can adopt it too.

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Colgate-Palmolive, founded in 1806, manufactures and sells hygiene products in the U.S. and internationally. Its wide variety of offerings range from toothpaste and toothbrushes to hand soaps, shampoos, and household cleaners. Popular brands include Palmolive, Tom’s of Maine, Irish Spring, Softsoap, Speed Stick, and Fabuloso. It’s also the parent company of Hill’s Pet Nutrition, which sells its products through pet supply retailers and veterinary clinics.

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Colgate-Palmolive (CL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Colgate-Palmolive

colgate-palmolive

Good morning. Welcome to today's Colgate-Palmolive Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded and is being simulcast live at www.colgatepalmolive.com. For opening remarks, I'd like to turn this call over to EVP Investor Relations, Claire Ross.

Good morning, welcome to our Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Release Conference Call. This is Claire Ross, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Today's conference call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these statements. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and are made on the basis of our views and assumptions at this time. Please refer to the earnings press release and our most recent filings with the SEC, including our 2025 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings, all available on our website, for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.

These remarks also include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude certain items from the reported results, including those identified in tables four, six, seven, eight, and nine on the second quarter earnings press release. A full reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measures and related definitions are included in the earnings press release. Joining me on the call this morning are Noel Wallace, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Stan Sutula, Chief Financial Officer, and John Faucher, EVP, M&A and Special Projects. Noel will provide you with his thoughts on our results and our 2026 outlook. We will open it up for Q&A. Noel?

Thanks, Claire, good morning, everyone. Before we begin today's discussion, I wanted to pause and recognize someone who's been a pillar to our investor team and to our company for quite some time. John Faucher will be retiring at the end of September, making today his 40th quarterly earnings call with the company and his 29th alongside me. John brought a rare combination of investor perspective, great business judgment, and strategic thinking, not only to our business and our earnings process, but to our M&A work, our board discussions, and broader shareholder engagement.

He's taught me a lot about value creation. He's been a fantastic advisor to our leadership team and a dedicated partner to the entire analyst and investor community. I know you know John, who has been a prolific quoter of pop culture, it's only fitting for me to end with an infamous Han Solo quote from Star Wars. Thank you, John, and may the force be with you.

With that, let's get on to the quarter. We're pleased to have delivered another quarter of strong top and bottom-line growth, particularly in the context of continued global volatility. Our strong results this quarter across our financial statements were broad-based, with organic sales growth in four of five divisions and three of our four categories. We delivered solid gross margin expansion before a modest tariff benefit. Base business EPS came in ahead of our expectations, even as we delivered a double-digit increase in advertising. Our balance sheet and cash flow performance through the second quarter is also very strong, with free cash flow up 18%, and we returned $1.4 billion to shareholders. The strength of our global operating model, combined with the strong execution on the ground, continues to drive our performance.

As was the case last quarter, our sales growth was led by emerging markets, which were up mid-single digits, driven by India, Brazil, Mexico, and China. We also had strong contributions from our European markets as we continue to drive organic growth and market share gains through innovation and omni-demand generation. Our Hill's business was also a contributor to growth as it continues to outperform the category with premium science-led innovation. We will work to maintain this global momentum while driving improvement in the U.S., where we were not satisfied with our performance, as you saw in the commentary. Here are some of the actions we're taking to change the trajectory of the U.S. business in the second half. Continued scale-up of our 2026 and 2027 innovation.

We're pleased with the performance of our recent innovation like Optic White Pro Series with ActivShine technology and our expansion of Fabuloso in new forms. We will continue to drive these new products with increased distribution and strong brand support. With heightened competition in many of our categories, we will take surgical actions by category and channel to drive market share improvement while still executing behind our revenue growth management playbook. We've also planned for higher levels of brand support across our core businesses to drive both our equities and win at the point of purchase. On a global basis, we'll continue to invest behind and scale our capabilities in areas like innovation, data, analytics, digital, and AI. This leaves us well-positioned to deliver perceivable superior products to accelerate category growth and drive market share improvement.

We believe our efforts in revenue growth management, promo AI, and funding the growth give us the ability to invest in advertising to build our brands while driving profit and EPS growth, even in a period of significant cost inflation. We will also deliver against our strategic growth and productivity program as we build the right organizational structure to deliver against our 2030 strategy. We've executed a strong first half of the year. While there are still some uncertainties ahead, we are optimistic the strength of our global model will continue to deliver both in the short term and set us up for long-term success. With that, I'd be happy to take your questions.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please limit yourself to one question. If you have further questions, you may re-enter the question queue. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. Our first question today comes from Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

First, best wishes to John. Thanks for all your help through the years, we'll miss you on these calls.

Noel, I wanted to touch on the pet division. Clearly pretty soft category dynamics in the quarter, but obviously Hill's is performing well from a share standpoint. Just any perspective around the category softness, do you think we're sort of nearing a bottom? More importantly, how do you think the Hill's business is positioned relative to that category softness, and can these share gains continue? Also, just if you look at pet organic sales growth, even adding back the private label discontinuations, it's really pricing that drove the organic sales growth. Just any perspective on your ability to continue to realize pricing in pet. Last, sorry for the multi-parts, but I think it's important to probably touch on Prime and the plans there and how significant that can be to your business as you think looking out over the next couple of years. Thanks.

Thanks, Dara, for the question. Let me start broad-based. Another, we think, impressive quarter for Hill's, and as you rightly call out, in a tough market environment, we delivered solid organic growth. If you look at it, ex private label at 4%, well above the category, which is more or less flat right now, particularly in the U.S., where we continue to grow at 4%. U.S. a little softer than some of the emerging markets and global businesses. Private label, as you well know, had a 200 basis point negative impact to volume. Ex private label, volume was roughly flat in the quarter on a tough comp and a tough market. By and large, we're very pleased. Why is that?

We grew in all segments across the business that we're focused on, except for Science Diet dog, where we've talked about the migration to small pets and large pets certainly deteriorating in terms of their ownership. As a function of that, the dry dog food business down a little bit, but everything else up, particularly in the areas where we've been building momentum, cat, wet, and small paws. The other impressive number in the quarter was our therapeutic business, which continues to grow very, very nicely, both from volume and pricing, which is helping to not only drive that strong gross margin acceleration, but the positive mix we had in the quarter as well. Margin performance, as I just mentioned, was good. Operating margin was up nicely as we continued to increase the advertising as a % of sales.

Strong advertising levels once again in Hill's, and we would further expect to do that in the back half of this year as we look to accelerate category growth. E-commerce, likewise, another growth driver. Strong businesses across some of the pure play retailers, and we did well on Prime Day. Overall, we think we're executing against the right elements, particularly in the U.S. Our international business was up solid mid-single digits. Again, an area of opportunity as we continue to drive penetration and growth of the science-based premium segment of the market. Specifically on Prime, the Prime business continues to do very well in Australia. They were up very nicely in the quarter on top of a significant growth in the first quarter. We're very pleased with the continued acceleration of that.

I think more importantly, we've learned an immense amount about the Prime launch, particularly around the manufacturing process of delivering high quality, consistent fresh products, and that's been very much built into the launch of the fresh that we're rolling out, as you have heard right now in the U.S. It's anchored against single proteins, so we believe there's real science behind it. It's clearly going to be professionally driven. We're focused on getting the profession to underscore the importance of the quality of these products and the efficacy values they bring. We've launched three single protein diets. We're in the midst of rolling that out and phasing that out. It will be a very thoughtful launch. Again, as I've mentioned in previous conversations, we're not looking to generate significant volume right now.

We're looking to really build the brand and underscore the science-driven nature of our product and the quality of our product. The manufacturing process is going very well. The rollout is going as we planned. We'll have more to talk about that later in the year. Overall, market shares continue to grow. Certainly in the segments that we're focused on, we had good market share performance. In terms of the category, I do think the category's bottomed out, but we shall see. As we see inflation in the U.S. market, we'll probably see the category continue to be under a bit of pressure.

As we've said consistently, we have real growth opportunities in the segments that we're going after where we're under index. Again, on wet, on cat, on small paws, and certainly the international businesses, we continue to go after markets where we think we can build the science-based credentials that deservingly of this product for the long-term health of the brand. In essence, a good quarter for us and some good growth opportunities as we move forward. Category will continue to be pressured, but the opportunities to grow the top line are there for us.

The next question comes from Peter Grom with UBS. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, everyone. Good morning. John, I also want to say thank you Stan, thank you. Maybe to keep with the pop culture references, I specifically want to thank you for never jamming me at the drive-through. Now to my real question. I was hoping to ask about gross margin. You noted in the prepared remarks some benefits from refunds in the quarter. Even after backing that out, it was a pretty strong result. Maybe can you unpack how that came in relative to your expectations? What drove the strength? Then looking ahead, gross margin now expected to be flat for the year, can you maybe walk through the phasing a bit, just in the context of three, two, I would imagine, having peak inflation. Thanks.

Thanks, Peter. Let me start strategically in terms of how we're thinking about gross profit and some of the decisions and focus areas. I'll let Stan unpack a bit more of the details on it. Clearly, gross margin was strong in the quarter, up 100 basis points, and as you point out, up 90 basis points versus the previous quarter as well. We got a little bit, a modest benefit from refunds. The bulk of the growth definitely came through our core business and some of the initiatives that we're taking around the world. Clearly, some inflationary pressures that we put into the P&L.

We talked about getting those costs up front into the P&L on the first quarter call, and that's really important as we look to manage the business to ensure that we're proactively getting those costs into the income statement. Our teams on the ground are executing pricing and revenue growth management and using all of our tools to generate profit growth as we look to increase the advertising, as you saw in the quarter. That clearly is happening. We'll continue, obviously, to focus on the elements of our revenue growth management. Our Promo AI tools are being scaled around the world. We're seeing benefits from that. We had strong funding to growth in the quarter, doubling down on that as we move forward. We don't anticipate we'll see any more refunds coming or very insignificant moving forward.

We're focused on the core health of the gross margin line, and that's really driven by mix funding the growth and the pricing that we have and the overall discipline that we're seeing. It was great to see a little mix come through in the quarter as well. That is intentional. Looking at the growth opportunities we see around the world and our more focused category country combinations on where we're seeing real benefits from that. Overall, strategically, the teams are executing well. The pricing is in the P&L. We'll watch inflation carefully. As you saw in the prepared remarks, we expect cost of goods to peak in the back half of this year, as well as tariffs. We're well ahead of that right now, and we'll continue to manage as we move forward. With that, let me have Stan break it out a bit more for you.

Yeah, thanks, Noel. Let me unpack that a little bit more. First, we are very pleased with the margin performance here in Q2, and it was multifaceted with good RGM, good productivity, the pricing, the mix, a very strong performance here by the teams. We have our eyes wide open, and as we said in our first quarter call, we look to make sure our teams understand where we see material prices going so they can anticipate that in their pricing, their RGM actions for the rest of the year. On material prices, they're slightly below our expectations as the higher raw material costs were partially offset by the benefits of the tariff refunds in the quarter. As you look at the back half of the year, Q3 is essentially largely locked in, pretty much in line with where we previously guided.

Q4 might be a little bit lower than our previous assumptions, given oil more in the $90 range. We're still seeing impacts related to uncertainty about the war. As we look at the back half, we have easier compares on a year-on-year basis. We've increased our gross margin guidance to roughly flat for the year. We do have to keep in mind that we do expect the higher raw materials and tariffs will be higher in the second half of the year than they were in second quarter. The reason for the raise is our execution here on margin and the components that go around that. We're confident on the year to be flattish up from down.

The next question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning. Just wanted to talk a little bit about the balance between volume and price mix, particularly as we look into the second half. There's been a lot of strength from some other consumer companies, particularly in emerging markets. I know you had strong, in particular, Brazil and India this quarter. Just curious about how you're thinking about volumes and acceleration or lack thereof in the second half. Thanks.

Good morning, Lauren. Thank you. The back half, at least as we see it right now, we got a lot of pricing in the first half. We anticipate we'll be a little bit more volume driven in the back half of this year as we see the continued focus on the momentum we have, particularly internationally in some of our big markets, particularly around the premium side of the business as well.

We see opportunities on the volume more or less in the back half. We're not anticipating the categories will inflect any differently in the back half right now. We've assumed more or less sustained based on what we've seen in June and the early parts of July. Pretty consistent. Our focus will be on getting the new products executed, driving brand penetration, delivering a balanced pricing volume, slightly more towards volume in the back half as we move around the world, that will be pretty consistent market by market.

The next question comes from Robert Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. The commentary on China continues to sound a little bit more positive. I'd love to, if you could do a bit of a dive on the Chinese market, which is always changing, the competitive dynamics there, changes in how the Chinese are shopping, which we're picking up as we look at the beauty sector in particular. Just an update on the turnaround for Darlie and how you're going to be able to keep up momentum for Colgate at the same time. Thank you.

Good morning, Rob, and thanks for the question. You're absolutely right. China is such a fascinating market. I think I maybe alluded to in the first quarter, we've had all of our operating heads in China in the last six months, to learn from some of the incredible innovation going on in that market. Particularly around go-to-market, whether it's social media platforms, whether it's business to consumer platforms. It's just fascinating to get everyone inserted there. While I think China's way ahead of the rest of the world, and some of it will apply, some of it won't, it certainly promotes a significant amount of innovative thinking from our teams, and I think a real benefit to how we want to execute in other areas around the world.

That being said, our businesses continue to do well, particularly our Colgate China business now consistently delivering mid-single digit performance, good volume performance in the quarter, particularly out of our CP China business. Despite a significant amount of disruption in that market in terms of new platforms, declines in brick and mortar, shifts to e-commerce, as a result, and some very aggressive competitive environments as well. Overall, very solid performance. We continue to invest behind the China business, both from the Colgate and the Darlie side in terms of marketing. A lot of unique innovation going into that market. We've rolled out some of that in the world. The Optic White Purple is a perfect example of taking an innovation that was developed in China with a social-first model and then rolling that around the world. We've seen very nice incremental shared growth as a result of that.

The other important aspect I'll mention is the digital talent that we're getting out of China. Some of the best in the world that we're exporting into other markets as we speak. Hawley & Hazel was up, as you mentioned, up low single digits organic growth, another quarter of good volume growth, mainly driven from the B2C area and some good innovation at dual chamber continues to do well. We're not out of the woods on Hawley & Hazel yet. We still have a lot of work to do, but some exciting plans in the next six to nine months around the brand and around how we're structuring innovation and technology there, and ultimately how we're going to continue to capitalize on the shift towards online, which the Darlie business needs to capitalize on quite quickly.

As I mentioned, Greater China was up mid-single digits, which was terrific to see. We're stepping up our innovation and our go-to-market strategies there and executing quite well. My sense is still a challenged category, though. The categories are basically brick and mortar down, e-commerce offsetting some of that. In general, we would assume the market's probably down 1%-2% in total. We're executing well, obviously consuming above those numbers. It's a tough market. We're going to continue to be very thoughtful on how much we put into China, given some of the ROI that we're seeing in some of the new platforms that are emerging. By and large, executing top line and delivering some good gross margin, and we see the profitability coming behind that. More to come, [inaudible]. We'll keep you up to date as we learn more.

The next question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

It's great to see a little bit higher range for earnings this morning. I'm curious, though, why not raise the lower end of the organic sales growth guidance range? You're running 2.6% organic sales year-to-date. The lower end of the range would imply flattish for the back half of the year. You've got easier compares going into calendar Q3. Is that just a bit of conservatism in the outlook? Is that some uncertainty on North America? We're hearing about retailer boycotts and certain retailers in Europe. I'm not sure, but it just struck me, given your year-to-date run rates. I'd love a bit more perspective on just how you're thinking about different ranges and some of the different upside and downside scenarios perhaps you're considering into the back half of the year. Thanks.

Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Clearly a solid quarter, as you point out, from a top-line standpoint. I think underscores the resilience of our model and the fact that our strategy is working around the world. The global footprint that we have and the category combinations that we compete in. That being said, you've alluded to just a few of the uncertainties in the world that we live in today. Clearly, the various wars, the impact on consumer confidence, the huge ups and downs we're seeing in the categories. We obviously talked about the significant drop in the North America categories in May. They did come back in June, but still below historical numbers. We're seeing a lot of volatility.

Despite the fact that we're executing above the market growth around the world, we didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves at this point relative to where the top-line is. Clearly, we're shooting for higher numbers, as you say. That is clearly what we're hoping to achieve. There's a lot of volatility in the market, a lot of consumer uncertainty as we measure it, particularly coming out of the higher gasoline prices at the pump. We're going to be prudent and thoughtful there. As we see things improve, as we move through the back half of the year, we'll come back and look at that again. Right now, we felt it was a prudent place to land it.

The next question comes from Andrea Teixeira with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and congrats again, John, and thank you for everything. I think we go back 26 years? Good to see everything you've done for the community. Just as we go back now, you just mentioned to Chris' question, the environment in the U.S. I just want to kind of double-click in your comments on the prepared remarks. You said June getting better. You highlighted, obviously, more innovation, and you always have been disciplined from a pricing perspective. Is there anything you can say about the price points or how competitive you are in the entry-level pricing? How comfortable you are on that perspective, and how comfortable you are in terms of your stats for the second half? Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, good morning. I think your question is specific to the U.S., if that's the case, that's how I'll answer it. If not, let me know, I can talk about it more on a global basis. Clearly, we're all, particularly the North America group, disappointed with the second quarter. On top of the category softness we saw in May that I talked about, we called that out at Deutsche Bank. We've seen heightened competitive activity, we've seen, obviously, in parallel, some inventory reductions from key retailers come through in the quarter as well. We think the softness in May, as I just alluded to, was really the peak gasoline prices, particularly in the U.S., the commensurate impact on consumer confidence and people being very careful.

The categories, as I mentioned, did rebound in June, we've seen more or less that consistent in July as well, still below historical numbers. We need to be mindful of that, certainly not where they were in May, which it bodes well. Further impacting the shipment numbers in North America were the inventory reductions we talked about, with shipping consumption more or less at one, with shipments down three. There's some noise in those numbers. We're not as focused on the inventory reductions as we are being very deliberate about the actions that we need to take on the things that we control. I think we've got a good line of sight of what actions that we need to take to continue to stabilize the market shares moving forward. Let me talk about a couple of those for you.

We're going to step up support to accelerate, particularly premium innovation in the toothpaste category, quite frankly, across some of our other categories as well. You saw the recent launch of Optic White, we're going to continue to focus on that. We've launched some extensions in Fabuloso, more of that to come. We will continue to step up our 2026 and 2027 innovation grids, particularly on the premium side. Specific to your question on price gaps, we did identify some very select price gaps in certain retailers and certain categories against some of our competition. We will address that, be very prudent and thoughtful on how we do that. We can't be uncompetitive in terms of pricing and promotion, we want to be sure that we're not leading that further down.

We're going to be very thoughtful on how we go after some of those channel opportunities. As I also mentioned, we're going to step up our spending in the back half of this year. Not competitive in some of the categories in terms of advertising support, we'll accelerate that, and that's obviously built into our guidance as well. Clearly the things that we can control, we're going after. We're going to be very intentional. We recognize that the numbers aren't where they need to be. It won't be a linear improvement, but we'll see certainly sequential improvement as we move through the back half of the year.

The next question comes from Filippo Falorni with Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. I also want to say thank you to John for all the help through the years. Lots of luck to you. I wanted to ask about Latin America. That business continues to do very well for you both on volume and pricing growth. I'm just curious, from a volume standpoint, what is driving the market share gains, if you can expand a bit there, both in Mexico and Brazil? Then as you think about the back half of the year, how sustainable this consistent performance is, especially as you lap the Colgate Total reformulation last year. Thank you.

Thank you, Filippo. Good morning to you. As you mentioned, a good quarter for LatAm, another good quarter with up more or less 5%, what's pleasing is the balance between both pricing and volume. In pricing up 2.8% and volume 2.6%. Volume, as you mentioned, bounced back, it bounced back quite frankly in the last three quarters. Obviously, a slightly easier comp, but the good news is the volume's coming back. Part of that's certainly driven by getting the Total issue we had behind us as we continue to rebuild the Total share, and that's coming back nicely. A strong innovation platform that we had across all of our core businesses, particularly in Brazil and in Mexico.

You saw the Brazil and Mexico numbers, I think that we alluded to, with Brazil up high single digits and Mexico up mid-single digits, and oral care in general across Latin America up high mid-single digits. A good execution against a tougher market environment where categories still are running more or less mid-single digits, but not back to where some of the historical growth numbers were. We feel like we're gaining penetration and certainly rebuilding the premium side of the business where we lost a little bit on Colgate Total. From a category standpoint, all three of our categories were up, had strong growth, as I mentioned, in oral care, but we were up low to mid in personal and home care, behind some of the big relaunches on our core businesses in that region. Pleasingly, it's pretty broad-based.

As I alluded to earlier, the shares on Colgate Total are coming back, and those have improved sequentially, particularly in Brazil. We're starting to see that as we comp against some of the issues we had last year in some of the other markets. FX was a bit of a tailwind, but still very volatile. With some of the political and economic uncertainties in the region, we won't expect to get the FX tailwind in the second half that we had in the first half. We'll be managing pricing and inflation very carefully with our revenue growth management.

The next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everybody. John, also congratulations. If you decide you get bored and want to give Wall Street another whirl, Jefferies is always hiring.

Yeah, I think I already know the outcome of that consideration. A couple of things just to understand this inventory thing. Is it a shipping below consumption? Is that a one and done? Is it something that snaps back later, it could be a tailwind into the back half? On Hill's, particularly Hill's and the rollout of Prime, how do you manage the message on the value to veterinarians of fresh, while also the core of the message of what the Hill's business is, which is selling to them the idea of the benefits of Hill's, which is dry? Just curious how you balance that messaging.

Sure. Yeah, thanks for the question. Let me talk with inventory first. Then I'll come back on Fresh. Clearly, as the market softened in May, retailers took note of that, as you would expect, probably adjusted inventories, thinking we need to manage possibly to a lower baseline relative to where the consumer was. Whether that comes back or not, I think we always need to bear in mind that our retailers are looking to manage their business with the least amount of inventory possible. Our focus is how do we drive consumption, how do we drive the top line faster as we move forward, that's what we're going to be laser-focused on.

Getting the execution of our new products, getting the promotion gaps that we have addressed, but do it thoughtfully, making sure that we have the investment in the back half of the P&L to generate sequential improvement as we move, compare the second half versus the first half. We will see what the retailers do. We have not built that into our numbers, that the retailers will then load up with inventory once again. We anticipate that things will continue to be choppy, we need to focus on the things that we can control. Your question on the Fresh launch, which is quite interesting. As we have said consistently, we are not going to get into emerging segments unless we can bring the brand platform to life. The brand platform for Hill's is science-driven nutrition.

We have spent a lot of time looking, as we made the acquisition of Prime, to find a brand that was science first. Clearly, the single protein idea and the rationale behind that single protein is that it promotes healthy digestion, radiant coats, and overall improvements in health, is clearly integrated into the launch. We are going to the profession with a fresh alternative that consumers are asking for, the profession's looking for a science-based, efficacy-based product that they can trust and recommend, and that's exactly how we plan to build the demand for the product is through the profession. We'll be very thoughtful and methodical on how we do this.

We want it, to your point, to build on the Hill's brand name and ensure that science continues to be at the forefront and efficacy continues to be on how it delivers against pet owners' needs. That will be the focus. We think it fits very nicely as another extension into our Hill's business. Yes, we have a big dry business, but as I mentioned earlier, one of the fastest growing parts of our business is the wet portfolio, we bring great science into all of our offerings.

The next question comes from Kevin Grundy with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. John, of course, all the best. It's been a pleasure. Well, question for you on advertising marketing levels and overall satisfaction. The spend, as you know, is still near historical levels as a percent of sales, that is, going back more than 20 years for the company. On the one hand, encouraging to see such high levels of brand support. On the other hand, maybe a more cynical push, maybe cost of business is moving higher, ROI, perhaps not quite where you want it to be if we look at organic sales and the fact that's up 2% to 3%. I would love your opinion on where you see it now. One, your overall level of satisfaction with the ROI on the spend. Do you view this level of 14% of sales, is that the right level for the business going forward? Thank you.

Yeah, thanks. First of all, really pleased in the flexibility we have in the P&L, our ability to be very focused on driving long-term health of our brands, that clearly underscores and supports the fact that we want to continue to increase advertising level. The advertising market and media market, in general, has become far more sophisticated, at the same time, far more complicated with the various outlets and ways to spend your money. The good news is, with all of our data and digital work that we've been doing over the last two or three years, we're getting much better at measuring ROI and effectiveness of that spend. Certainly, we're seeing the ROIs, particularly as we move more and more into digital. Certainly, as we move more and more into social and getting clear reads on that, the ROIs look very, very good for us.

We're pleased that we're getting what we want. That most important measurement is obviously long-term brand health, which clearly the analysis that we do across our brands in our big core markets suggest that our brands are very, very strong and continue to strengthen. As we position some of those brands into different areas, that requires more advertising that we believe is necessary for the long-term health of the business, and we'll continue to invest behind building those brands. Some of the category sluggishness that we've seen as well, we need to make sure that as a leader in the categories in which we compete, we're driving excitement and value into the categories.

A lot of our science-driven innovation requires us to spend and explain some of the great innovation that we're bringing to the market. Yes, we'll assess that as we move forward based on where categories evolve. Right now, it's about building brands, particularly in a market where you have a little bit of disintermediation in media, and ensuring that we have great analytics to measure the ROI, and we're pleased with both of those right now and anticipate that we'll continue to see that in the model moving forward, as you've seen over the last couple of years.

The next question comes from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the question, and thanks again to John for the help. Noel, maybe as a follow-up to Filippo's question, I think emerging markets, organic sales are running, call it 6%, up through the first quarter. Just your level of confidence even potentially that emerging market total performance could accelerate. I know you already touched on Brazil and some of the nuance there, but maybe also just the commentary on India up double digit in the quarter. I think there's, again, a discrete kind of lap in 3Q you can just remind us of, and any thoughts there would be very helpful. Thanks very much.

Yeah, thanks. Clearly, the strength of our global footprint, particularly in emerging markets, we're going to be largely the contributor to category growth. Category growth, at least in some of our big emerging markets, is running roughly mid-single digits. It's slowed a little bit from historical numbers. Our focus is to continue to bring great value. One of the things that we do a little bit differently in emerging markets is while we continue to have real opportunities on the premium, there are some core markets we're building penetration and creating good value for people to come into the category is very, very important, whether that's in toothpaste, whether that's in cleaners, whether that's in body wash or any other categories, making sure that we have price points that attract both the bottom end of the market as well as the premium side of the market.

In markets where we have significant shares, like a Brazil, clearly, we want to drive more premiumization in those where per capita consumption is high. I don't necessarily expect the categories to inflect that much more positive in the back half, and the reason why is while there's the uncertainty of oil prices and consumer confidence kind of lingering on the top, consumers will still be very thoughtful in terms of their purchases. Yeah, we'll see better growth in emerging markets, until we get some of this volatility behind us, I don't really fully expect the categories to rebound. We need to accelerate the innovation, that's what we're doing. We're making sure we're stepping up.

I talked about leveraging some of the China know-how from sending our teams to understand how we're doing things there to accelerate some of the excitement that we bring to some of our big emerging markets overall. On the India business, yeah, a really strong quarter for us, which is great. It was balanced both from an indirect trade as well as a modern trade. We're seeing a lot of our focus on premiumization in that market. While it's still a small part of the market, long term, we see that as a real growth opportunity for the category and for the brand. We have stepped up our focus on the premium side of the business in the modern trade, and we're also getting our price pack architectures in the right place and making sure that we have what we need to compete in the indirect trade.

I think you're probably referring to the GST issue last year. That is working its way through. To pricing on pack, which is obviously slightly lower than it was historically, and we should see that obviously translate into some better consumption. You're not going to see massive spikes as a result of that. I think you'll see a very gradual change as more and more consumers come into the category. A good market for us, and we're encouraged. We need to continue to stay very focused on our strategy there. The team's doing a great job executing, and we have real long-term growth opportunities, particularly on the premium side of the business.

The next question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you, and congratulations from me, too, on your retirement, John. You're definitely gonna be missed. I just had a quick question on your organic sales growth guidance. With half of the year behind us and the first half tracking closer to the midpoint of the range, how should we think about the cadence of growth for the rest of the year? Is it reasonable to assume an acceleration as headwinds related to the private label pet food exit goes away and you lap challenges in Latin America? Any other puts and takes to keep in mind as we think about growth in Q3 and Q4, I guess, especially in context of pressure trends in the U.S. Thanks.

Thanks, Bonnie. Listen, clearly, from a consumer standpoint, still a lot of uncertainty. I think what's somewhat unusual right now is the volatility that we're seeing from month to month in category growth numbers. It's a little bit more difficult to predict, okay, the categories will inflect, and as a result, we'll see stronger growth in the back half. That being said, we do exit private label. If we get some of these wars behind us, we'll see a little bit of tailwind from that. Clearly, we're expecting to see some marginal improvements in North America as we move through the back half of this year.

That should help, and the strength that we have in emerging markets should help. We're not gonna get too specific on where we see organic coming in, but clearly, we still have some headwinds that we're faced with, but we also have some tailwinds on some of the things that we're moving out of. We shall see. That's built into the guidance that we have right now in terms of earnings per share. We'll come back and look at the organic as we move through the third quarter.

The next question comes from Rob Moskow with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for the question. I was kind of hoping that there could be just a little more color on why there's such a gap between the tracking data that we're seeing in retail sales from the providers and reported results. This quarter, it's inventory deloading, but in prior quarters, there's been a big gap as well. Is there something going on in unmeasured channels that you think is not being reflected as well as it should be by these aggregators? Is there something systemic that's not being captured, either in e-commerce or in club channels? Maybe this is better offline, but it's not just this quarter, but it's several quarters.

We'll leave it to Claire and John maybe to take you through some more detail and maybe get more in the weeds, because we've been in the weeds on this, as you can imagine. The fundamental blocks of that are the inventory destocking that we've seen in tracked channels, right? That's where you see the discrepancy. Untracked channels as well, there's been obviously a little bit of change in terms of how they manage things. We've talked about increased couponing and increased promotion as a result of that filtering through. There's a multitude of different things. Clearly, the biggest driver there is the inventory depletion that we've had. Now, bear in mind, let's recognize we lost some share as well in the quarter.

While the consumption's been good, we've lost a little bit of share that is certainly translated in the untracked channels that's caused a little bit of slippage in the shipments as well. We need to focus on getting that back, and that's what we're going to concentrate on. Whether the trade decides to reload, we shall see. My sense is there's still quite a bit of uncertainty in the North American business, and I wouldn't expect to see major swings either way at this point.

The next question comes from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I'll echo the thanks to John as well. Just want to come back to Hill's and see if we can get a little bit more color on some of the fresh launch. I think you characterized it as not as much focused on volume, but some more of a branding initially. Maybe elaborate on kind of how you're thinking about that. How broad of a launch is this? Is this just a test, or is it kind of full speed ahead? Is it any new channel exposure, or what's the competitive positioning maybe like on price point? Can you just bring to life a little bit some of how you're going to market there?

Sure, yeah. Once again, everything we do on the Hill's brand is focused on respecting the model that we have, which is demand created through the vet, science-driven first and foremost, and ensuring that the pet owner understands the differentiation that we bring to the pet and to the food, hence why we charge a premium price for it. That model is extraordinarily important for us to build the credentials and the science first and the professional backing. As you look at basic demand models where we typically put products on the shelf and promote through aggressive advertising and media.

This brand will have a very slow and thoughtful build to it. We want to ensure we get the professional backing behind it. The manufacturing process is obviously more complicated. We want to ensure we deliver the absolute best quality product on a consistent basis. We are using our normal channels, the professional channel, as well as pet specialty and the neighborhood vet stores that we've historically always sold our product through, and that'll roll out through the balance of this year. It's not a one ship to all retailers. The manufacturing process will allow us to phase that in through the balance of this year.

The next question comes from Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, and congrats on your retirement, John, and hopefully you can give your passport a little bit of a rest. I was wondering if you guys could compare and contrast the turnaround in Asia Pacific with what you may need to do in the U.S. I realize these are two very different markets, but it's been a very nice volume recovery in Asia this year after a pretty difficult 2025, which, to your earlier comment, sounds like you think it's sustainable. Are there learnings from that recovery that you can deploy in North America as you look at driving a change in the arc there? Thanks so much.

Thanks, Olivia, we've had that very same conversation quite a bit in terms of some of the learnings that we've had in Asia about rebuilding the go-to-market model, rebuilding our focus behind our big core businesses and brand building, accelerating our investment posture in some of the momentum areas that we see in the market, I think most importantly, stepping up innovation on the premium side of the business, particularly in the online channel, which has been such a pronounced change in the Asian market over the last four or five years. I think a lot of similarities relative to North America. Getting our go-to-market, going after the channel category combinations where we see real growth opportunities, making sure that the core businesses are strong, and most importantly, really stepping up our innovation cycle and the resources I talked about in the first quarter.

I think I mentioned about putting more resources on innovation, that is underway as we speak, and we'll start to see the benefits of that as we move through to 2026 and to 2027. Innovation, increased brand support, being much more surgical on making sure that our price pack architectures and promotion and coupons are competitive without chasing the bottom on that. We'll let the competitors perhaps take some promotional share because we just don't think that's long-term the way we want to drive that business.

We have some exciting innovation coming on the business, particularly the premium side of the business, and that's where we need to focus. We clearly are under-indexed on the premium side. Similar to what we saw in Asia, to your point, the online business sells at a two to three index on an ASP per basis in Asia, particularly in China versus the brick and mortar. We have real opportunity to do the same here, and that's what we're going to be focused on with the portfolio of products that we have.

The next question comes from Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Thanks and good morning, and thanks from me as well, John Faucher. I appreciate all your help. Hey, Noel, I guess, I want to focus on Europe because we haven't spoken about that, and I think it's fair to say that many CPG companies continue to describe Europe as a difficult operating environment, and yet it's been one of your more consistent performers, I'd say, in the market where you seem to be extending some of your advantages versus peers. I guess, just in that context, perspective on your outlook and the expectations for Europe, I guess also similar to Olivia Tong's question, whether there are lessons you can take from what's been accomplished in the European region relative to improvements you're now targeting in North America. Thank you.

Good morning, Steve. Thanks. A lot, quite frankly, in terms of what we're seeing there, which I think I've described quite a few times, but let me reprise that because it's really important to our strategy. Globally, at least in our big core businesses, we are under indexed on the premium side of the market. We took a significant strategic shift in the European market three or four years ago, which was to focus on the entire portfolio of toothpaste that we have and really leverage the brands where they are strong and where the momentum is in the market. Clearly, the elmex brand, as you saw in some of the slides that we shared with the earnings release, continues to deliver, and that's at a super premium price to the market.

The super premium side of the category, at least in toothpaste, is the growing part of the market. We're under indexed there across the world. We've been severely under indexed there in North America, that will be the focus. Europe, we've been able to obviously leverage our portfolio both on the Colgate side as well as the elmex and meridol side to go after the super premium side, and we'll continue to focus on that in Europe. It's been a great market for us. I give the team a lot of credit for, obviously with a very challenging retail environment, they've brought great innovation to our retail partners across all of our categories, which have allowed the categories to remain somewhat robust given the historical numbers that we've seen there. We're still getting volume growth, pricing growth as well.

Overall, I attribute it to the strong innovation that we've executed on the premium side of the business. A good quarter, as you said, despite about a 1% headwind from the Middle East. Coming through, that would have been on top if we hadn't had that. Overall, Europe continues to execute well. The emergence of the African region into Europe, outside of the Middle East, continues to perform quite well as well. Overall, we're starting to see opportunities to manage that portfolio more synergistically across Europe and Africa, and we hope that we'll see some benefit of that flowing through in gross profit longer term and how we drive efficiency and standardization of our portfolio as well. A good business of innovation, premium, and good execution and running through the operating margin line as well has been one of the pillars of success of that division.

The last question today comes from Edward Lewis with Rothschild. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks very much. Echo the thanks to John. I'll miss discussing Premier League football, or I should probably say soccer, with you.

Well, hopefully Spurs are going to have a much better campaign this year, Edward.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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