Mark LaVigne: It’s broadly across the online market.
Operator: [Operator instructions] The next question is from William Reuter with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
William Reuter: Good morning. I have two. So the first one, you talked about the first quarter headwinds. You talked a little bit about DIY, and then you talked about the timing shift. I didn’t hear anything about kind of seasonal sets with your retail partners being down year-over-year. Were there any changes to the amount of distribution that might be in kind of specific to the holiday period, any changes to the amount of shelf space that they’re allocating to the products?
Mark LaVigne: There is not. It’s consistent year-over-year, what we’re seeing in the U.S. In international markets, we talked about some distribution losses, and that obviously would impact holiday, but in the U.S., holiday sets are largely consistent with last year.
William Reuter: Okay. And then just secondly for me, you did mention that there may be some shift going on to non-tracked channels. Sorry, rather that your market share of non-tracked channels is a little bit lower. Are there any changes in terms of consumer consumption around private label? You talked a little bit about how you have Rayovac and some lower priced options that you can try and kind of fill those gaps, but is there anything going on with private label?
Mark LaVigne: Private label overall globally is up about 0.7 share points. You’re seeing it higher than that in the U.S., but it’s isolated to certain retailers as well as online, as you’ve dealt with some of that channel shifting that’s going on there. In international markets on balance, it’s going down. It’s going down in Europe. It’s increasing a little bit in APAC, but overall, it’s going down. So I would say private label is within the manageable historical range of what you’ve seen from category penetration over the years.
Operator: The next question is from Brian McNamara with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Brian McNamara: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just following up on Andrew’s question, on the top line, you’re starting minus 6% to 8% in Q1 on your easiest compare. You’ve got it flat to low singles for the year. So what drives that improvement, specifically the volume improvement in the back half of the year?
John Drabik: I would say from an overall standpoint, what we’re factoring in is you have half of this shift from Q1 is going into Q4 this year. From a volume standpoint, we’re expecting flat volume year-over-year pretty much throughout the year and I think just healthy category dynamics and distribution are going to drive the improvement as we get into Q2, Q3.
Brian McNamara: Is there any specific dynamics between the batteries and auto care in that volume outlook?
Mark LaVigne: Pretty consistent. Consistent between the two. You’re going to see — in terms of top line, you’re going to see a little bit of growth in auto care for the year, whereas batteries will be trailing that.
Brian McNamara: And then secondly, if this shift towards value offerings and batteries persists, does that change your promotional strategy for the year?
Mark LaVigne: Yeah, I think as we analyze promotion, we want to make sure that you don’t sort of solve a temporary problem with a permanent solution and I would say you continue to invest behind your brands. You continue to promote. We’ve got value brands we can offer, but ultimately, consumers will come through this environment into a healthier environment. And we want to make sure that we continue to keep them at the premium end of the category because that’s the healthier margin dynamic for us and that’s going to be continuous. It’s how do we bridge the gap both with our value brands, our promotional strategies to continue to work our way through this macro environment that consumers are experiencing.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mark LaVigne for any closing remarks.
Mark LaVigne: Thanks, everyone, for joining the call and the ongoing interest in Energizer. I hope everyone has a great rest of the day.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
