Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Noel Wallace: Yeah. So it’s tough to nail down exactly how the balance will end up. I mean, we’ll have to watch it very carefully. It’s going to differ by category and by geography. But clearly, the comps get easier from a volume standpoint in the back half. You heard me mention around 500 basis points. So that will certainly be a nice tailwind for us. And obviously, the comps on pricing get a little bit more challenging in the back half as we move forward. But we feel very good relative to the guidance that we provided and comfortable that we can achieve that. But we’ll see how the categories behave, if the consumer continues to be rather fickle around the world. But as I mentioned, it’s been very constructive promotionally.

And so far, the resilience, particularly in markets like Latin America, and to a certain extent, Africa, had been very, very good where we’ve taken a lot of pricing. We’ll watch North America quite closely. And obviously, we think we continue to have a lot of hedge based on the Hill’s business as we continue to drive penetration and share growth, which, incidentally, I didn’t talk shares on Hill’s. They continue to respond very, very well with share growth in the quarter across most of our recipes, which is terrific. So we feel good about where we are in the guidance and we’ll see where it ultimately ends up. Obviously, if there’s upside, we’ll take it. But we feel good that we’re in a range that is responsible to continuing to keep the structure of the P&L the way it is.

Relative to — the second part of your question was on — was on advertising, Peter or what was it on?

Peter Grom: No. It was just the sequential improvement on a two-year stack basis. Just recognizing that the comps get easier, if the two-year stack improves, what does that actually imply? Because it would seem to imply it does improve that there could be some nice improvement in return to volume growth in the back half of the year?

Noel Wallace: Yeah, exactly. And you said it well. I think we’ll start to see a return to volume growth in the back half of the year. The two-year stacks, as I mentioned upfront have continued to accelerate. We’ll have to — my expectation, you’d probably see that moderate a bit as we move through the back half, but volumes will improve. And as I mentioned, we still have some pricing coming through that we’ve taken this year, so we’ll see the benefit of that and a little bit of the flow-through from last year. So overall, I think we’ll have a more balanced composition as we move through the back half of the year.

Operator: That concludes the Q&A portion of the call.

Noel Wallace: Great. Well, thank you, everyone, and thanks for the questions this morning. We continue to appreciate your interest in our company. Clearly, we had a strong quarter and I hope you agree, the strategies and the plans in place to deliver consistent compounded profitable growth are there and that will allow us to drive increased shareholder value. We couldn’t do this without the incredible efforts from Colgate people all over the world who continue to focus on execution of our strategy and the consistency of delivery. So I thank them and I look forward to talking to everyone in the third quarter.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. We thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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