Procter & Gamble quarterly earnings smash forecasts on emerging markets
Procter & Gamble posted a higher profit than it anticipated, helped by growth in developing markets and its biggest volume gain in four-and-a-half years, and it raised the low end of its fiscal-year earnings outlook.
The world’s largest household products company said profit fell to $2.59bn (£1.69bn), or 83 cents per share, in the third quarter that ended on 31 March from $2.61bn, or 84 cents per share, a year earlier.
Core earnings per share, which exclude certain tax, legal and restructuring charges, rose 10 per cent to 89 cents. On that basis, the Cincinnati-based maker of Tide detergent and Gillette razors had forecast 77 cents to 82 cents.
Sales rose 7.4 per cent to $19.18bn. Organic sales, which strip out currency fluctuations, acquisitions and divestitures, rose four per cent, meeting the low end of the company’s four per cent to six per cent forecast.
The volume of goods sold rose seven per cent. For the 2010 financial year, P&G now expects to earn $4.06 to $4.12 per share instead of $4.02 to $4.12 per share.
It expects net sales to rise three per cent to five per cent this year and six per cent to seven per cent in the current fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, P&G’s rival Colgate-Palmolive said sales rose 9.5 per cent, but profit fell as it took a hefty charge to account for hyper-inflation in Venezuela.