Noel Wallace: Thanks, Olivia, and good morning. So as I said in my front comments, we believe we are well positioned to deliver consistent compounded earnings growth moving forward. And that’s certainly reflected in our guidance in the range that we provided. We have a good strong momentum coming out of ’23 and heading into ’24. And I think most importantly, the flexibility in the P&L and the balance sheet has allowed us to set ourselves up for continued success. As we look at the cadence of that, we will see the balance overall change as we lap the higher pricing that we’ve had through the bulk of 2023, that will rebalance itself down to be sure and we’ll see the volume come back in the categories. As I talked about earlier and ultimately, our focus on driving household penetration with the increased advertising and the market share position that we have.
So we think we’re in a good position. Comps will get tougher as you say, but we feel that we’ll see the volume growth come back and will offer balanced growth throughout the balance of the year. Now recognize that we still have some inflationary markets, Argentina, we talked about, obviously, Nigeria and Turkey that will drive some pricing. We’ve got some flow through. Most of the pricing we’ll see in 2024 will be pricing flow through. We are going to take a little bit of new pricing in certain select markets. But overall, we’re going to see a much better balance, as I mentioned upfront. How that ultimately unfolds we shall see but we’re definitely planning for more balanced growth as we move through the back half of this year.
Operator: The next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Kaumil Gajrawala: Hey, everybody. Good morning. Could you maybe just give us a kind of state of play in China, starting maybe with the market and then getting into new business specifically?
Noel Wallace: Sure. Thank you, Kaumil, and good morning. In China, you’ve heard it, I think, consistently throughout the earnings season so far that there’s a real slowdown in China, and we’re not immune to that slowdown. I will say with respect to some of the numbers out there, we feel we’ve performed very, very well across Greater China. Our business roughly down low to mid-single digits and that was very much commensurate with the category declines that we saw in those markets. Clearly, on the skin health side, we’ve seen a more acute decline in the categories and therefore, a bigger decline in our business as well. Long term, the market fundamentals remain intact. And I think it will take some time as we move through 2024 for those markets to come back.
Obviously, a lot of stimulus money, as you’ve read, going back into the market, but we shall see the impact that has on consumers and consumption. But we think we’re well positioned. The business continues to build share on the Colgate side. We talked about the Holly & Hazel. We think we’re now shipping more closely to consumption as we move through the price increase and some of the inventory allocations that we’ve seen across the trade and we’ve got a strong innovation pipeline for next year, but we will be thoughtful and prudent on our investment structure in China until we see the categories come back to levels that invite us to invest more. But we feel long term, a good market and the dynamics are there, but we want to be thoughtful in the short term.
Operator: The next question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Lauren Lieberman: Great. Thanks, good morning. On North America, it was great to see volumes inflect a positive this quarter, and you called out growth not just in oral care, but also in bar soap, liquid hand soap and cleaners. So I know there’s a lot of things that kind of contribute to that better performance. You mentioned more balanced promotions. But I was wondering if could you spend a little bit of time talking about innovation across the business and any plans for ’24? And maybe also if you could talk a little bit about any plans you may have around hand dish and plans to kind of stabilize and regain share in that business? Thanks.
Noel Wallace: Yeah. Hi, Lauren. Good morning. Thanks. I can’t really talk specifically to the innovation that we have in 2024. But I can say, obviously, that we’ve got a strong pipeline and a much more balanced pipeline across all of our businesses. The acceleration in advertising is thoughtful and strategic as well that we will support more of our businesses in North America. I think that’s a reflection of the really strong operating profit growth that we’ve reinjected back into the business. So we feel like we’re in a much better place to support some of the categories that had been declining in advertising over the years. So we feel we’re in a good place to reflect continued growth on the volume side. Obviously, the pricing will moderate quite considerably in the US as we move through 2024.
And we’ve got a strong innovation pipeline across the categories in order to ensure that we continue to drive market share. The other aspect of it is, as I’ve talked about, a more balanced cadence of promotions, and we will make sure we execute those very, very thoughtfully. We have no intentions on going back to the historical numbers there, but we feel we’ve got some opportunities in select accounts in select parts of the country in order to accelerate where we’ve seen competition be quite aggressive. So good position. Really happy with the health of the P&L. Really happy with the advertising that we put back in the P&L, which will bode well for the long-term health of that business.
Operator: The next question comes from Mark Astrachan with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Mark Astrachan: Yeah, thanks and good morning, everybody. Two questions for me. One, on North America. So global market share better, in North America markets for toothpaste a little bit weaker, advertising spend obviously increased in 4Q and for the year. How much is the right level? And is there a correlation in the US between advertising and volume performance? Is there more to it than that R&D, whatever, curious there? And then on the Hill’s business, given the weakness in pet specialty channel, has it made you think at all about whether your distribution mix in terms of where the product is sold, is right at this point? Or do you potentially think about expanding that to other retailer areas? Thank you.
