The Procter & Gamble Company
Q1 2017 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 25 Oct 2016

[Operator:]

Good morning and welcome to Procter & Gamble's quarter-end conference call. P&G would like to remind you that today's discussion will include a number of forward-looking statements. If you will refer to P&G's most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K reports, you will see a discussion of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections. Also, as required by Regulation G, Procter & Gamble needs to make you aware that during the discussion, the company will make a number of references to non-GAAP and other financial measures. Procter & Gamble believes these measures provide investors with useful information on the underlying growth trends of the business and has posted on its website, www.pg.com, a full reconciliation of non-GAAP and other financial measures. Now I will turn the call over to P&G's Chief Financial Officer, Jon Moeller.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Good morning. I'm going to be relatively brief today. Our results are fairly straightforward and we're together soon for our Analyst Day, when we'll go in much more detail on our progress and plans. Our first quarter results mark a good start to the new fiscal, though work and opportunity remain. One of our key priorities has been to accelerate top line growth. Organic sales for the quarter grew 3%. This includes about a 1-point drag from the combination of the rationalization and strengthening work we're doing within the ongoing portfolio and the impact of reduced finished product sales to our Venezuelan subsidiaries. Top line growth was broad-based across categories and across markets. Organic sales growth in the U.S. progressed from 1% in the first half of last fiscal year to 2% in the second half to 3% in the quarter we just completed; growth in China minus 8% to minus 2% to plus 2% over those same time periods. We've been making sequential progress in each of our largest categories

[Operator:]

Thank you, sir. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Powers with UBS.

[Stephen R. Powers:]

Hey, Jon. Good morning.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Good morning, Steve.

[Stephen R. Powers:]

So clearly a good start to the year, and as you say, a fairly straightforward quarter, all things considered. But now we look forward, and I guess my question -really, the question I've been fielding for the last hour or so, is where do we go from here? I know you don't want to give quarterly guidance and I don't expect you to, but just given how significantly the year-over-year comps ramp in Q2 and really how significantly the volume comps ramp all the way through Q4, I was hoping you could just help frame for us your expectations for the OND (15

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Steve. I think you said several important things – or repeated several important things. One is, not a straight line. Two is, increasingly difficult comps. Obviously, we start the year with a 3% and provide guidance for the year at 2%. There will be a quarter or some quarters below 3%. We've also said that we want to exit the fiscal year closer to the rate of market growth in our categories, setting ourselves up for a strong subsequent year, and so that backs you in to the next two quarters being the more challenging ones in front of us. And that's really as far as I want to go in terms of specific guidance. In terms of return on the investments we're making, I think you see that, both from a top line and a bottom line standpoint in the first quarter. On a constant currency basis, very significant returns, with 12% core earnings per share growth on 3% top line. We are reinvesting, as we said we would, productivity savings. But as we also have said we would, we're going to continue to modestly improve margins. And that is the only recipe for sustained success in this industry, and we're intent on following it and so far are pleased with the results.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Nik Modi with RBC Capital.

[Nik Modi:]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Jon, maybe you can help us, following up on Steve's question, just the cadence of the reinvestment or the investment both from a marketing and an innovation perspective. Just trying to understand which quarters are going to be heavy in terms of those investments and new product launches. And then just a quick follow-up, bigger picture, Kathy [Fish] took over the R&D function a couple years ago. And usually when you have leadership changes in R&D, it takes a couple of years to fill the pipeline. So I just wanted to get your assessment on what the upstream and the current pipeline looks like in terms of, on a scale of 1 to 10, how you would view it in terms of the immediacy of the new products actually hitting the marketplace.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Nik. I apologize in part for my first part of this response, but I really think on a daily basis in terms of fiscal years, not quarters, as you know. And so I really don't even know from a marketing spending exactly what the breakdown or the plan is by quarter. But I know that over the year, we're going to continue to reinvest productivity savings. Those will be more significant as the year progresses. We've also said we want to increase our continuity of marketing spend and trial and sampling building programs, so I expect that statement to lead to relatively constant levels of increase across the quarter. But it's honestly a figure by quarter I don't have currently in my head. The second part of your question about the cadence of new product introductions, we have significant programs coming to market in the third quarter and another batch towards the end of the fourth quarter. In terms of new product launches, the second quarter will be relatively light. And honestly, I've forgotten the last part of your question, but feel free to call me later today and I can catch you up on it.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

[Lauren Rae Lieberman:]

Thanks, good morning. Jon, I was just struck by toward the end of the call you really emphasized some words like market constructive and value-accretive way of reinvesting. So I was just curious about thoughts and actions in terms of consumer value adjustments as you addressed in the press release and in general the status of your relative pricing in some of your major categories and markets, so 2x4 would be great.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Lauren. I'm glad you picked up on that because this is important. In the new 10-category company where we have leading positions across those categories, we become increasingly dependent on moving markets, on growing markets. There are category/country combinations where we have 60, 70, 80, 90% market shares, so one more point of share isn't the margin of victory or defeat. And that doesn't mean that share isn't important. Share is important. But we need to be growing markets, increasing the number of users for our brands, and that's what our activity system is all set up to do. So when you talk about, for example, increasing trial and sampling at point of market entry and point of market change with noticeably superior products, that moves markets over time. And being able to price behind superior innovation also moves markets over time. What doesn't move markets is, for example, leading the march down on promotion spending. If you look at the quarter we just completed, price inclusive of promotion was a neutral contributor to the top line. It has been a neutral to positive contributor to the top line for the last 24 quarters. It has been a positive contributor for many years, I think it's 12 in a row. So that's going to continue to be what we're going to emphasize, which is market accretive, market constructive, growth-driving investments. Now having said that, we won't be successful in that endeavor and maintain our shares if we're uncompetitive. And so we will take moves where warranted to ensure that we're offering a competitive value proposition to consumers. We've made several of those moves in the last quarter. What moves happen in the future will be largely dependent on where others take us. But thanks for picking up on that point; it's an important one.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Ali Dibadj with Bernstein.

[Ali Dibadj:]

Hey. So I want to build on that because despite the language of market accretive and market constructive, your last two quarters have clearly shown a shift towards volume growth versus price/mix. I guess a long-term trajectory, but a long-term trajectory from a top line perspective hasn't been that great. But just now it's starting to look a little bit better, again, volume being the driver. So how do you think about the balance of investments between innovation and ad spend, sampling, and versus less than pure pricing on the top line? Because the perception we're hearing and you heard one of your competitors yesterday say it effectively. The perception you're hearing from them and some of your other competitors is that it is just starting another price war. We've heard this from P&G before. It's going to be a pyrrhic victory or at least a fleeting victory for now. So how do you get comfortable that that's not going to be the case? You can't really control the perceptions of competitors, obviously. But the perception is already clearly forming. So how are you sure that it's not going to be a pyrrhic or fleeting victory for you guys, and how do you think about the competitors' reaction to you guys clearly being a little bit more aggressive and pushing more volume?

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Ali. We do expect – we compete in a very strong industry with strong competitors, and we expect them to be working just as hard as we are to protect and build their businesses. And that's one of the factors that I cited in terms of guiding to 2% top line growth on the year against the backdrop of a 3% Q1. In terms of ensuring that we're engaged in the activities that best support our brands and businesses, there's really not an aggregate answer to that, though I'm comfortable in aggregate. That's really a choice that's made at individual categories and countries. And the way I think about this very simplistically is in line with your question. If we grow business by, for example, significantly increasing promotion spending, that will be – I think you're absolutely right – a pyrrhic victory. Why, two reasons; number one, nothing proprietary can be matched instantly. That's very different than a successful investment in innovation or equity building or sampling which can create unique advantage. Two, promotion spending by definition, almost by definition, is market dilutive, whereas those other activity streams can be, if executed with excellence, market accretive, and that's just a better place for us to be in. So I'm not going to give a formula or an algorithm, not because I'm afraid of giving one, but simply because it doesn't exist at an aggregate level. That's not how we manage the company. But the emphasis points will continue to be focused on long-term drivers of market growth and brand growth, long-term drivers of new users to our brands, but short-term competitiveness.

[Operator:]

Your next question will come from Bill Schmitz with Deutsche Bank.

[William Schmitz:]

Hey, Jon. Good morning. I'm going to try to sneak in two questions in one. So the first is, why do you think organic growth grew almost – actually more than 3 points faster? That would have implied by some of the tracked channel data. And so maybe is there a difference between shipments and consumption? And then on the gross margin side, it seems like most of the currency transaction pain, it probably peaked this quarter and is over. So how do you think about that trajectory and how much of that money has to be reinvested back in the business?

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Bill. First of all, from a comparison of reported results to tracked channel trends, reported tracked channel trends, there are two big drivers within that. One of them is simply the amount of business and the relative growth of that business that's moving online versus offline and to non-tracked customers like Costco, as an example. So in the U.S., for example, that explains about a point of difference, a full point of difference between the tracked channel sales growth numbers and our reported sales growth numbers. In China, that number represents a 5-point reconciliation item between those two numbers, so that's becoming increasingly significant. And as you know, the relative growth rates there are very, very different, 30% in one to call it 3% – 2% in the other. The other difference that exists in the U.S. tracked channel reports, as it should, is the inclusion of the Beauty businesses that were transitioned to Coty as of October 1. So any of the share reports or sales growth reports that have come out to date rightly include that business. They won't going forward. And that dynamic in the U.S. explains about 0.5 point of difference between the tracked channel numbers and the core non-discontinued business numbers that we're reporting today. And that's about – that's another big part of the equation. We do have one situation which I'll make you aware of that falls into your last bucket, which is timing differences that would affect the different quarterly reporting numbers, and that's in China where we transitioned our Hong Kong business to a new distributor. And so there's some pipeline fill to that distributor in the numbers on the quarter, call it 1 to 2 points, relatively small on a total company basis, but that's a 1 to 2-point impact in China itself. So those are the primary drivers of the differences.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of William Chappell with SunTrust.

[William B. Chappell:]

Thanks, good morning.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Good morning, Bill.

[William B. Chappell:]

Hey, Jon. One thing you said in the prepared remarks is talking about Hair Care and Grooming as opportunities for growth, and I just wanted to drill into that. And are they really – what we've seen, especially in Grooming, over the years, ups and downs, and you're the dominant player in the category. Is that something that you can get back to reasonable growth? And as you look across all the categories, do you think now with Beauty out, all of them can grow in line with expectations, or are there some that will be laggards over time?

[Jon R. Moeller:]

If you just look at the last two quarters on a global basis for Grooming, we grew organic sales 3% in the quarter that we just completed, and the prior quarter we grew 3% as well. We continue to have significant opportunities on the Grooming business for growth. Certainly, the developing market opportunity is very significant. But there are opportunities as we increase our relevance from a channel standpoint, as we increase our relevance from an opening price point standpoint, as we increase innovation across each of the tiers of the business, whether that's disposables, mid-price systems like MACH3, or at the high end. So I do see that as a market that offers growth opportunities to us. And I feel that way about every business within the portfolio, especially relative to the metric of market growth. The market growths are different across the categories. I mentioned in the prepared remarks they range anywhere from 1% to 7%, and so I would expect our businesses to grow at slightly different rates. And obviously the geographic opportunity is different by market. But in general, we settled on this portfolio because it's one we feel we can grow and can do so profitably.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley.

[Dara W. Mohsenian:]

Hey, good morning.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Good morning, Dara.

[Dara W. Mohsenian:]

So, Jon, you articulated that there's room for efficiency in your $18 billion promotional budget previously. That's obviously a very large bucket. So I was just hoping you could give us a bit more granularity on if your efforts in that area are supposed to yield actual savings that are substantial that you can drop to the bottom line over time. Or is your approach more to redistribute any of the potential efficiencies back to drive more effective spending and hopefully higher top line growth over time? And then also, when do you expect the promotional efficiencies to really ramp up and take hold from a timing standpoint? Thanks.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

The idea here is to increase both the efficiency and the effectiveness of our spend across the elements of the marketing mix. And there are many cases where promotion spending is a very effective use of our funds, and we'll continue to support that spend. There are other instances where both we and our retail partners would be better off redirecting that spending to other elements of the marketing mix, focusing back again on how can we drive market growth in our categories and how can we drive shopping trips and basket size for our retail partners. And it's really working together in a joint context to identify where those opportunities are, where today we're potentially both engaging in activities that are both market and profit dilutive to both sides of the partnership, and looking for ways to redirect those funds in a way that can be more accretive to both sides of the partnership. I do not see this as being a significant source of bottom line help. I think we're much more in the camp of redirecting and redistributing to encourage market growth, growth in users, and have that happen in a profitable way for both partners.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Olivia Tong with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

[Olivia Tong:]

Great, thanks. Good morning, Jon. Do you guys have any data to suggest you're attracting new consumers with all the sampling that you're doing, and how does that compare to your expectations? Are these consumers younger? Are they shopping more online versus brick-and-mortar, or are they fairly similar to your traditional consumer? And then just also, I'm not sure I heard it. But can you provide the price/mix volume breakdown between developed markets and emerging markets? Thank you.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Sure. So I'm just looking for data here. If I look at volume sales price mix in developed, volume is plus 4%, sales plus 2%, price/mix minus 2%, for a net of plus 2%. That's obviously the all-in number, but organic volume plus 4%, sales plus 2%. In developing, organic volume plus 3%, sales plus 6%, and then – those are the major drivers of what's happening there. In terms of payout on sampling, I'm glad you asked that question. This is something that is typically – if you can sample consumers at point of market entry or point of market change with noticeably superior products in categories where brand loyalty is relatively higher, the lifetime benefit from that relatively modest investment can be significant, but it is a lifetime benefit. A consumer will take a period of time just to use the product that you've sampled them with. And so that's not an investment endeavor that we typically see immediate returns in. That's why, unfortunately, we got into a practice of reducing that spending because it wasn't producing – it never produces immediate short-term result. But it's really the area of spending that should be the last that we cut because of its importance in building users for potentially a lifetime of consumption. So we're happy with our efforts to date, but it's an area of return that we'll be monitoring and measuring for several years to come.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Wendy Nicholson with Citigroup.

[Wendy C. Nicholson:]

Hi, good morning. Just to clarify, I think you called out another 1-point headwind on volumes this quarter from SKU reductions and minor brand divestitures and all that. Is that a number that's going to be in perpetuity, or do you have a time certain in mind that that headwind is going to end? And then secondly, if I'm looking at the Beauty business, and granted the 2% number is much better than we've seen, so that's great. But with Pantene up mid-single digits, and I know SK-II up strongly, I think that that implies that Olay is still really struggling. And maybe that's related to the first question, which is the SKU reductions that I know you've taken there. But what is the timeframe, do you think, for when Olay will return to growth mode? Thanks.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

In terms of the drag on the top line from portfolio focusing within the 10 categories, that is something that should start ramping down in the back half of this fiscal year. I expect it to continue, though, at some level through probably the first quarter, first two quarters of next fiscal year. But I don't think it's at a level during that period when we're likely to be talking about it; so still significant through the second quarter, reducing in significance sequentially from there. In terms of the Beauty business, we're very happy with how that's performing overall, as you said, plus 2%. I mentioned the sequential Hair Care acceleration that's occurred over the last 18 months or so. In the quarter, as you mentioned, Pantene was up mid-single digits. Head & Shoulders was up mid-single digits. SK-II was up strong double digits. Our Personal Care business is doing fairly well. Olay is stabilizing. We're going to annualize coming up here in the not too distant future the SKU cuts that we made in the U.S. We should annualize those in the back half. And we're just in the middle of redoing our entire counter system in China, and that includes some reductions in the number of counters to be more relevant in the channels that we want consumers shopping for Olay in and to have a better overall shopping and consumer experience. So I expect that those two items, the SKU reduction in the U.S. and the counter rationalization or redesign in China, will continue to put some pressure on Olay, call it through the balance of the fiscal.

[Operator:]

Next we'll go to Jason English with Goldman Sachs.

[Jason English:]

Hey, good morning, folks. Thank you for the question. Jon, you mentioned market growth range here from 1% to 7%, and hopes that you close the gap, tracking close to market growth by the end of the year. Can you give us a sense of what all-in that market growth looks like on a weighted average category/country basis? And then separately, even when we back out this 1 to 2-point benefit in China, the sequential improvement is notable, so congratulations on that. I was hoping you could expound a little bit more on the drivers of that improvement, whether it be channel driven, category driven. Just give us a little bit more color.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Jason. In terms of an aggregate market growth number, it's likely somewhere between 3% and 3.5%. I say likely because, as you know, that's a metric that lags, so I don't have data through September, for example. It's been declining modestly quarter to quarter, 6-month period to 6-month period, but I expect we're going to be somewhere in the 3% to 3.5% range overall. In terms of China, we've made some real progress on a couple important businesses and continue to do reasonably well in some others, with some work in the balance still to do. If we look at Oral Care, for example, in China it was up almost 15% on the quarter. That's driven by continued progress with the Oral-B brush as well as the high-end premium Oral-B paste that we launched a couple quarters ago. Shave Care, to the point of the question is there growth in Grooming, that remains up 17% on the quarter in China. Our Personal Care business is doing extremely well in China, as is SK-II, so that the entire Skin and Personal Care business was up about 10% in the quarter. Our biggest business in China, as you know, is our Hair Care business, which is a significant portion of the total. We continue to have four of the top leading brands in the market in Head & Shoulders, Rejoice, Pantene, and Vidal Sassoon. I think those are respectively number one, two, four, and five in the market. We're essentially flat there versus year ago, so we do have some – and part of that is driven by some new entrants into the market. One thing, but clearly it continues to be a strong business and offers some upside. The one business where we need to make much more progress is on Baby Care, which was down again double digits on the quarter. We feel very good about portions of our portfolio. Our pant offering, for example, is doing extremely well. We have some new premium taped innovation coming into the market in the next six to nine months, which we're also very excited about. But that is a business that we need to keep working on. In terms of channels in China, we're doing very well in e-commerce, growing ahead of the market, building share in e-commerce, still not yet to the level of our brick-and-mortars shares but improving significantly. We've stabilized and started growing shares in the hyper and super part of the business, which is encouraging. We still have some challenges both in the wholesale market and in building distribution in some of the specialty channels that are among the fastest growing. But as you rightly point out, overall real progress, and as I think about China long term, a significant opportunity on both the top and bottom line for the company.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Grundy with Jefferies.

[Kevin Grundy:]

Hey, thanks. Good morning, Jon.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Good morning, Kevin.

[Kevin Grundy:]

A quick housekeeping and then a broader question, so the housekeeping question, just because we've gotten a couple inquiries from investors this morning. The organic volume growth number was strong, albeit against a soft comp. Was there any timing benefit in the quarter or anything notable that you'd comment on with respect to retail inventory levels? And then the broader question, and I apologize if I missed this, what are the market growth assumptions contemplated in your outlook? And maybe you could separate the comments, Jon, into U.S., other developed markets, and then emerging markets. And I ask that in the context, we've seen some of your competitors talk about slowing market growth rates, particularly in Latin America. And maybe you could also comment on whether that outlook or those growth rate assumptions have changed over the past few months. Thank you.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

In terms of the organic volume and any timing impacts within that, not really. The biggest driver there is sell-through to consumption as well as the base period dynamic, which you rightly cited. There are certain categories where events are at different times and cross-quarters this year versus last year, but in aggregate that's not a significant driver of the volume progress that occurred. In terms of the market growth assumptions split developed and developing, this is like foreign exchange or commodities in that I don't know what the future holds. And so our forecast is predicated really on the equivalent of FX or commodity spot rates, which is just simply the latest data. And the latest data we have past three months shows market growth of a little over 1% in developed markets. That's inclusive of Western Europe, Japan, et cetera. And it shows 5% growth in developing markets. Weighted average together you get close to the 3% to 3.5% number that I was speaking with Jason about. If you look at the trend of those numbers, and I'm looking at sequential three-month periods, I really don't see a significant difference or a significant trend of change across those markets, so 0.1s and 0.2s, but nothing of significance.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Joe Altobello with Raymond James.

[Joseph Nicholas Altobello:]

Hey, guys. Good morning.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Hey, Joe.

[Joseph Nicholas Altobello:]

I just wanted to focus on Fabric Care, if I could, this morning. I guess you guys mentioned in the press release organic sales in developed markets up high single digit. I guess first, how sustainable is that? I assume that number was similar in the U.S. And maybe if you can, compare that to what category growth was in the U.S. And maybe finally an update on competitive activity, particularly from Henkel in U.S. laundry – or sorry, in U.S. Fabric Care? Thanks.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

So starting with the aggregate number, as you know, organic sales in Fabric Care grew 5% in July – September. Within that, North America was up 7%, so we did build share of about 0.4 points on a past three-months basis in North America. The most important thing, though, in North America is the improvement in the rate of market growth, going back to our earlier conversations, up 4 points on a past three-month basis, driven by innovation in the category, which is exactly what we hoped to see. Also, growth within that segment is being fueled by our fabric enhancers business, the U.S. up 7 points versus last year with the scent beads segment, the one we're innovating in the most significantly, growing in the mid-20s; our fabric enhancer share up 1.5 points on a past three-month basis. We've withstood fairly successfully several competitive dynamics. We don't take that casually, though. But if we can continue to be an innovation leader in the market and moving the market, we believe we'll continue to be in a good position. Will the growth rate stay at that level? I would say likely not to that full extent in developed markets, but they'll continue to be attractive. On the other hand, what's implied deductively in those numbers is declines in developing markets. A lot of that is being driven by the portfolio, focusing efforts within Fabric Care, getting out of some of the lower-priced tiers, the bars, even powders in some markets. And so that's having an impact on growth from a negative standpoint, which should dissipate as we go forward. And so when you put those two things together, I would expect that Fabric Care will continue to be a strong contributor of growth at a total company level.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Astrachan with Stifel, Nicolaus.

[Mark Astrachan:]

Thanks and good morning, guys. I wanted to ask a couple housekeeping questions. So China category growth, what is it in the markets in which you compete when your competitors are talking about just overall slowdown? I'm just trying to think about whether that's company or category specific. And then from an EPS algorithm standpoint for this year, what's embedded there from an input cost standpoint if you're starting to see things increase a bit there?

[Jon R. Moeller:]

China market growth, when you look at the – first of all, it's very different by category, so let me start there. And most of the categories, based on the data that we have, are holding up fairly well. There's been a lot of conversation, for example, about diaper category market value growth. If I look past 12, 6, and 3 months, I see 12.0%, 11.0%, 12.0%. So I don't see a major change in the growth rate of that market, and obviously it's at a very attractive level. If I look at, for example, Feminine Care, again, fairly simple; it's fairly standard growth rates, Fabric Care 4.5%, 4.2%, 4.2%. Where you do see a significant reduction in the market growth rates in the tracked channel data is in some of the Beauty businesses, but I don't have all the data here in front of me. But that is largely driven by the movement of that business online. It's one of the disproportionate growers on e-commerce in China. And in aggregate, we still see relatively healthy market growth. In total call it 5% to 6% to 7%, without a significant change in that trend over the past 12 months. In terms of input costs, I said in the prepared remarks that the combination of FX and commodities was a $0.12 headwind to earnings per share. About 2/3 of that is coming from commodities.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Caroline Levy with Crédit Agricole.

[Caroline Levy:]

Good morning, thank you. Looking, I think that the numbers you gave us on developed and developing market growth were volume up 4%, price down 2% in developed; and price up 3%, volume up 3% in developing. The question I would have is, as currencies stabilize, do you think there's less opportunity to get that 3 points of pricing in the developing markets? And so should we be actually a little more cautious on the pricing outlook moving forward? And then the other thing would be could you just talk about the biggest challenges to market share? I'm assuming it's Olay China and the U.S. and it's a couple of other big things. But if you could, just touch on that.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

I think you're right. To the extent that foreign exchange headwinds diminish, the pricing activity that we'll be engaging in, in developing markets would in all likelihood be lower. At the same time, though, that absence of price increase should lead to stronger volume growth over time. So I wouldn't necessarily look at developing market growth rates as inherently declining. But I think you're absolutely right that the components of that growth should be different. That's relative to price specifically. Relative to mix, I think you're still going to see some benefit there as major portions of the developing world move up the pricing ladder. The premiumization that we've seen in China, which is the largest developing market, is one example of that. And I expect that will occur in other markets as well as economies stabilize and improve. So net, I still am relatively bullish on our positions in developing markets and the growth prospects that they bring with them. In terms of market share losses, I mentioned the categories on a global aggregate basis where we're growing behind the market, and one of them is Hair Care. The other is Baby Care. And I also mentioned an opportunity in the U.S. Grooming market. We are on all of those. If you take Hair Care, for example, we're making great progress on Head & Shoulders, up 5 points in the quarter. We're making great progress on Pantene, up 5 points in the quarter. We have some issues, though, with some of our smaller brands, like Herbal Essences, for example, and we have a whole new program and a restage coming to market in the second half of the year. I mentioned some of the product work we're doing in Baby Care. And when we get that right, we tend to perform very well. If you look at the U.S., for example, where we do have that right, we're building market share both on Pampers and in aggregate. So as I mentioned, there's opportunity to improve. It's not something that will happen overnight, but it's clearly identified and being aggressively focused on.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Feeney with Consumer Edge Research.

[Jonathan Feeney:]

Good morning, thanks for the question. So it looks like as of last March, P&G had seen 17 consecutive quarters of negative foreign exchange effect, and it's a record (54

[Jon R. Moeller:]

There are real differences between, call it the last year and the years prior to that in the FX dynamics, which drive different decisions. You may recall, when we headed into the most recent round of big FX impacts, which was last year, we said that while historically we've been able to regain about 2/3 of the impact through pricing, we didn't feel we were going to be able to do that this time around. And that was driven in large part simply by a divergence in what was happening to the dollar and what was happening to the functional currencies for some of our significant competitors, namely the euro, the pound, and the yen. And those currencies were weakening over that period of time, and so there was less need for competitors who were reporting results in those currencies to price. And as much as anything, that's what you're seeing being reflected in the actuals. We're going to be pragmatic. We're going to offer a good value to consumers. But we're also going to work through every means we have available to us, including cost savings and mix improvement innovation to maintain attractive structural economics so that growth is worth something in these markets. And that's a different answer in every category and every market, month to month, week to week. So we're going to try to manage that as intelligently as we can. I wouldn't expect at this point, based on your point on where we sit today, do I expect pricing to be a significant part of the equation the balance of the year? I do not. In terms of how people are compensated, we are a U.S. dollar functional currency company. We pay dividends in dollars. We repurchase shares in dollars. And our investor base, as you well know, really doesn't care how many rubles we have or pesos we have. What they care about is how many dollars we have. And so the primary compensation lens is through all-in performance on dollar terms. We do, though, also have a look, because we don't want to incent behavior that's too short-term oriented, at constant currency. But over periods of time, we're going to measure our success or failure based on earnings per share and earnings growth and importantly, cash growth in dollars.

[Operator:]

And your final question comes from the line of Jon Andersen with William Blair.

[Jon R. Andersen:]

Good morning, thanks for the question. Hey, Jon, I just wanted to ask a little more broadly about two higher growth potential areas of your business. One is direct-to-consumer, and the second is green or environmentally sound or sustainable, whatever you'd like to call it. Are you happy or satisfied overall with the progress that the company is making here? And I know you have programs like Gillette Shave Club and products like Tide Pure Clean. Is this something that you can accomplish internally, be it internal focus or organic focus, or do you think you need to supplement or look to accelerate it with M&A as well? Thanks.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, Jon. Let me address green and sustainable first. While we're open to both inorganic and organic ways of increasing our product superiority and the sustainability of our products, and that's an important 'and', it hasn't been our experience that there's a lot available on the market that delivers that 'and', which something like Tide Pure Clean definitely delivers. We've been on this for a while. While Tide Pure Clean is new, and is doing very well, if you look at share of the segment, it's done remarkably well in a short period of time. Things like Tide Cold Water, if you look at the entire energy consumption stream involved in washing clothes, there's more consumed in terms of energy to heat water than there is in the process of manufacturing and distributing detergent. So we're going to continue to look at all vectors that enable us to improve our sustainability across the value chain from a sustainability standpoint to have products that consumers can choose that enable them to improve their impact on the environment while still delivering against the need or the job to be done. So I don't think anything is required from an acquisition standpoint, but I also don't want you to think that we're not very open-minded in our pursuit of this objective, because we are. As it relates to DTC, this is an area I think that's important that we frame, first of all. Direct-to-consumer sales in our product categories globally currently represent 0.3% of sales. And it's not a reason – I'm not saying that to indicate that it's not a potentially important tool for us, I believe it is. And we've been going direct-to-consumer. Think about SK-II, as an example, for a period of time. There are opportunities for us to increase our relevance from a selling and brand building standpoint in a direct-to-consumer context across several of our categories, and we're mobilizing against those. And again, I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but I don't see a mass move, call it 20% or 30% of the market, to direct-to-consumer consumption. If you just think about the experience of that, how many people do you really know that want to satisfy their household products shopping needs in a month or two by going to 40 different websites with 40 different passwords and 40 different packages that arrive at 40 different times? Again, I'm not in any way denigrating the opportunity that tool presents us and we need to fully capitalize on that, which we're working to do, but I did want to provide just a little bit of context.

[Operator:]

And, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

[Jon R. Moeller:]

Thanks, everybody, and hope to see you here in November.