Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL) — Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Thanks, Betsy. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2025 earnings release conference call. This is John Faucher. Today's conference call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these statements. Please refer to the earnings press release and related prepared materials and our most recent filings with the SEC, including our 2024 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings, all available on Colgate's website, for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. As we noted in the prepared commentary, our guidance includes the impact of tariffs that have been announced and finalized as of July 31, 2025. This does not include the tariffs announced by the United States last night. While these tariffs are not yet finalized, based on our preliminary analysis, we do not expect them to have a material impact. Our remarks also include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude certain items from reported results, including those identified in tables 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the earnings press release. A full reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measures is included in the second quarter 2025 earnings press release and is available on Colgate's website. Joining me on the call this morning are Noel Wallace, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer; and Stan Sutula, Chief Financial Officer. Noel will provide you with some thoughts on our Q2 results and our 2025 plan. We will then open it up for Q&A. Noel?

Yes. Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. Thanks to all of you for joining us today as we discuss our Q2 results. In Q2, we grew net sales, organic sales, and earnings per share despite significant raw material pressure and negative foreign exchange. Excluding the impact of lower private label, organic sales growth accelerated by 60 basis points to 2.4% in the second quarter with slightly positive volume driven by the improvement in North America and Africa/Eurasia. We also generated additional pricing through strong revenue growth management execution in key markets. We launched significant innovation across categories, geographies, and price tiers, and we closed the acquisition of Prime100, the #1 vet-recommended fresh pet food brand in Australia. As I said to you on the Q1 conference call, throughout 2024, we had prepared for a more volatile and uncertain operating environment in 2025. This preparation is paying off as the Colgate-Palmolive team continues to execute with resilience even as the environment remains difficult with category volatility, geopolitical, macroeconomic and consumer uncertainty, high raw material and packaging costs, including as a result of tariffs and lower levels of end market inflation. Through all of this, we remain committed to our strategy. And while we may shift tactics depending on the short-term fluctuations of the operating environment, our strategic focus keeps us on track for long-term performance. So first, I'd like to discuss how we're making short-term adjustments in light of what we're seeing in the world. Because we have a portfolio with broad-based strength across geographies, categories, and price tiers, we think we're very well positioned for the current environment. We're sharpening our offerings to appeal to consumers who are looking for value. And the work we have put into core innovation over the last six years means that our big core brands provide consumer recognizable value. We are actively leveraging price pack architecture to deliver consumer perceived value. This can be through larger size, multipacks where consumers pay a lower price per usage or through smaller sizes for consumers who are looking for a lower out-of-pocket expense. We can then leverage our global supply chain's breadth, resiliency and agility to respond to these changes in consumer preference. The cost environment is difficult as we're dealing with tariff increases, higher raw and packaging material costs, and less underlying category inflation. This means that our revenue growth management strategies need to drive additional pricing and mix with lower levels of elasticity as we look to improve organic sales growth in the second half of the year. As I talked about at CAGNY, AI will be a difference maker for us in our RGM efforts as we work with our retail partners to use data analytics and machine learning to optimize our portfolio and promotional spending to solve for the best combination of sales and profit growth. What is not changing is our commitment to our long-term growth strategy. We are focused on driving household penetration and brand health, which we see as the key building blocks of organic sales growth and consistent compounded earnings per share growth. We're doing this by launching innovation to help drive category growth for Colgate-Palmolive and our retail partners. Even in difficult environments, there are still many consumers that are looking to trade up with innovation that delivers incremental benefits. This is well represented in our investor presentation this morning through premium innovation like Colgate Miracle Repair serum, EltaMD UV skin recovery, along with relaunches on core brands like Sanex, Protex, Suavitel, and of course, Hill's. Our commitment to core innovation is vital as we work to bring news and consumer perceived value at every price point. And we remain committed to building our brands through investing in advertising and scaling capabilities in areas like digital, data and analytics, and AI. Today, we also announced a productivity initiative that is focused on prioritizing incremental investment and accelerating our capabilities to build a more future-fit organization as we transition to our 2030 strategic plan. While RGM and our funding-the-growth initiatives provide strong opportunities for investment and margin expansion, we are moving proactively to deliver incremental savings that can be leveraged to drive growth and create capabilities or applied to our bottom line. While we are mindful of the challenges in the current market, we are excited by the plans we have in place, both for 2025 and beyond. We have the brands, the strategies, the capabilities, and most importantly, the people to deliver on our short- and long-term goals. And with that, I'll take your questions.

First, just wanted to get a bit more detail on the restructuring program. What are the key operational changes? How should we think about the savings payback versus the charges? And why now? Is this just sort of a natural evolution after the conclusion of the prior program? And as you look forward to the 2030 strategy? And then, b, I was just hoping you could also touch on U.S. category growth. We've obviously seen a slowdown in household products. It seems fairly unique versus other parts of the world, keeping in mind your geographic diversity. It also seems fairly unique versus the broader U.S. consumer. So I'd just love a bit of perspective on what you think is occurring in the category in the U.S. And any thoughts on a potential recovery as we look going forward?

Thank you, Dara. I would like to discuss our productivity initiatives. If we reflect on 2020 or 2019 when we formulated our 2025 growth strategy, the main goal was to foster a growth mindset and identify areas for investment to boost our company's growth. This program included significant capability building, data analytics, digital transformation, and early-stage investments in AI and innovation. Similar to our approach in 2020, this plan aims to accelerate our goals and maintain the momentum we have with our 2030 strategic plan. I will provide more detailed updates to the teams at CAGNY and during the back-to-school conferences, where we will discuss our 2030 strategy in greater depth. This program is designed to keep us proactive in driving growth for the organization, and we plan to invest in enhanced capability building, especially in innovation and omnichannel strategies to streamline our omnichannel demand generation efforts globally. Increasing our investment in innovation, AI, and data analytics is crucial as we move forward with our 2030 plans. I've appointed Stan to lead this initiative, and I will now hand it over to him so he can share more detail on our savings and the associated costs of this program.

Yes. Thanks, Noel. So as Noel said, our areas of focus are going to be to continue to invest in our strategic imperatives here, accelerating the innovation, our investments in data and analytics, optimizing our supply chain. Of course, AI is a big focus on driving our omnichannel demand generation. So as part of that, we've announced a productivity program here that will be $200 million to $300 million of a charge over a 3-year period. That program will encompass a number of items, including optimizing our supply chain and looking at where we need to make key strategic shifts. In terms of a savings profile, if you look back at history and how we've achieved those in our last initiative, you should think about savings roughly in the same range as what we've demonstrated in the past. So while this program, we've done a lot of planning, we're ready to go. It's going to be done thoughtfully and done with the right opportunity to drive our structural changes to continue to invest in the key objectives for our 2030 strategic plan.

Yes, Dara. So let me come back on North America. You clearly heard it from others. There is a persistently cautious consumer in North America right now. We saw some rebound in April and May. The categories took a little step back in June, which we weren't expecting. So ultimately, over time, we fully expect all the categories to normalize and get back to historical growth rates. But right now, given the level of uncertainty that we see externally and particularly in the U.S., I think you're going to see the categories kind of hold where they are right now in the short term, but certainly get better as we start to exit 2025. Clearly, the North America business improved in the quarter. You saw the improvements there, particularly on a volume standpoint. We've got good plans in place in the back half. As I mentioned in my upfront commentary, we're very focused on getting price pack architectures right, building innovation, both at the premium side as well as our core businesses. Overall, the market share has improved during the quarter. So as we lap some of the significant promotions we had last year, we're pleased with where we see things now. The overall promotional environment is still quite constructive. I think everyone is focused really on innovation and driving value back into the categories. And again, when you go back to our productivity initiative, a lot of this is about generating more investment in the categories to get the categories growing again based on the current cautiousness that we see with the consumer.

I know the total relaunch had a great start this year, particularly in Latin America. I'm wondering if you could kind of give us an assessment of how it's going on around the world, what you're seeing? And then drilling back to Latin America, we're hearing from some other companies that maybe things are getting a little tougher in Mexico and Brazil. So perhaps give us an update in terms of what you're seeing in Latin America and if you have to pivot there at all? And then just big picture, what we should be expecting in the second half of the year from the global program?

Thank you, Robert. Overall, we are experiencing a significant core relaunch, particularly strong in Latin America, where we're attracting good incremental market share and growth. The new formulation is impressive, and we launched it alongside a revamped regimen portfolio for the first time in a while. This includes not just toothpaste but also a toothbrush and mouthwash that work together to support powerful effectiveness claims. So far, we've launched in about 75 markets globally, with Latin America leading the way, and we’re pleased with the results. The initial feedback from Asia and Europe is also quite promising, indicating positive trends for our premium share and growth in the toothpaste segment. In Latin America, we have seen some improvement in Mexico despite a slight slowdown in Brazil. Overall, the region seems to be showing some cautiousness in the consumer environment. However, as we move past current tariff issues, I anticipate improvements in the latter half of the year. We have already implemented some pricing adjustments in the first quarter, which are starting to materialize as we progress through the second quarter, and we expect these benefits to continue. We have solid innovation plans and investments in Latin America, and we aim to create more excitement in the categories as we enter the second half of the year.

I wanted to revisit the program you mentioned earlier, Noel. You noted that we won't see the benefits this year, but I'm curious about how we can expect it to impact the P&L in terms of innovation and digital initiatives, particularly regarding AI and the timing of those developments. Additionally, could you provide some insight on the situation in Europe, specifically regarding both Western and Eastern Europe?

Yes. On the productivity initiative, you shouldn't assume any major impact here in the back half of the year. So as we go to execute this, going to be over a 2- to 3-year period, we believe we'll conclude within 3 years. And as you see, you might see some cash here late in the year as we start to execute those programs. And you'll see that roll through the P&L, both in overheads as well as in margin because it's going to be a combination of events. In terms of the investment, those investments will occur over that period as well. So any of those are incorporated into what we have for our guidance for this year. So overall, for this, not a material impact for the back half of the year.

Yes. And the only thing I'd add is we're very excited about some of the opportunities we've identified within our 2030 plan. And again, this program will serve as a catalyst to get ahead of those programs as quickly as we can. It's clearly investments in the area of innovation and resources. We're putting AI into our innovation process. So there's going to be investments there, getting our tech stacks, continuing to use technology to enhance productivity across the organization, we're going to accelerate that. I talked a little bit about omni demand generation. We think that's a significant opportunity for us to get the consistency of how we deploy our marketing and commercial strategies on the ground more in line with each other. And we've seen some opportunities based on some of the success we've seen at Hill's and other markets around the world to drive more consistency of that deployment around the world. So overall, we'll see that's an exciting space to invest behind. On Europe and some of the other geographies, a little softness in the Europe business as we saw some of the volumes come down, volumes obviously still positive. Pricing still positive in that region. But again, I think a little bit of a pushback from consumers as they wait and see what's going to happen with inflationary pressure. I think one of the things we're seeing both in the U.S. and around the world is the inflation has hit food a little bit quicker than it's hit other products. And as a result of that, consumers are spending more money on their food choices. And as a result, perhaps being more cautious in other categories right now. But the key for us is getting exciting innovation back in the categories and making sure that we can continue to trade up consumers into some of our brands as we think about the innovation moving forward.

I wanted to ask about the gross margin outlook for the balance of the year. Obviously, there's a lot of puts and takes, lower tariff, now $75 million versus your prior $200 million, but you mentioned offset by higher raw material costs. Can you give us a sense within the raw material cost, what is driving the increase? It seems mainly palm oil, but maybe give us a sense of the rest of the cost basket and any other offsetting factor that you can think in terms of offsetting the tariffs on the productivity front?

Yes. So let me take that here. For gross profit, so the gross margin was down year-over-year in the quarter, driven by a combination of greater anticipated raw material inflation and tariffs. And although tariffs were lower earlier expectations, there's still an impact to the margin. But one point to note, Q2 '24 was our lowest level of material inflation. So if you look at last year, it was 140 basis points versus 420 basis points this year. So you can see the impact of the raw material cost. Our gross margin guidance stays roughly the same. It's based on lower tariff exposure, offset by higher raw material costs, and lower organic sales. So we guided that gross margin will be roughly flat for 2025. As a point of context, that guidance, if you look at the first half gross profit, it's flat year-to-year. So we feel like we're in a good position here to deliver the guidance. Now in terms of what's driving the raw materials, as we go into that, it's primarily what we said in the prepared comments, and that is that palm, veg oils and fats, and tallow all have moved higher. They're higher on a year-on basis. We don't see a lot of relief here yet. Keep in mind that like most companies, we have a buy-ahead program, so we lock in. So these are largely locked in for the third quarter. And if they ease, we'll see some of that easing in the back half of the year. Now some of the other categories have softened a bit. But in total, we still see that increase driven by fats and oils.

Yes. The only thing I would add, Filippo, is we had strong funding growth in the quarter as well, and we're encouraged by the 250 basis points that we saw move through the reconciliation. And obviously, we're very focused on that and accelerating our programs as much as we can in the back half to continue that strong pace.

Can you discuss Hill's? We are noticing some acceleration, and there has been some debate regarding the pet food category overall, questioning whether it has been declining. You have released new products, but is there a broader economic factor at play, or is it primarily the initiatives you've implemented that are driving the acceleration?

Thank you. Hill's had a strong performance this quarter in what we consider a roughly stable operating environment, especially in North America. We achieved mid-single-digit organic growth in nearly all regions for Hill's, including the U.S. and Europe. Hill's, excluding private label, recorded a 5% organic growth, which aligns with our performance in the first quarter, despite the flat category. We are pleased to see that volume grew by 2% and prices by 3%, indicating a balanced quarter. Last year's comparison was just under 8%, reinforcing the strength of the underlying business. Notably, the therapeutic segment is expanding faster than the wellness segment, which aligns with our strategy and the ongoing professional support we provide for the brand. The growth was also reflected in our margins, although we did experience a significant impact from private label this quarter, lowering our performance by about 300 basis points. As I have previously stated, we are not focused on producing private label products, so it’s important to evaluate the health of both Hill's and Colgate-Palmolive excluding private label. We recorded organic sales growth across all categories this quarter, including wet, dry, treats, dog, cat, Prescription Diet, and Science Diet. The growth is widespread across all segments and regions we are targeting. Additionally, we launched an exciting new advertising campaign this quarter that appears to be performing well. Margin performance was strong, driven by fundamentals and renewed investment in growth opportunities within the business. Category growth has stabilized without further decline, and we expect it to remain mostly flat for the next quarter. However, long-term trends in this category suggest potential tailwinds later in the year. I want to note that we ceased production of private label in July, so while there will still be some shipments this quarter, we will no longer produce these products going forward. Overall, we are seeing good results for Hill's and a solid business performance.

I had a question on your FY '25 EPS guidance. You've previously talked about building P&L flexibility over the years, ultimately to deliver consistent performance year-on-year. So I guess I'm curious what gives you the confidence in your low single-digit EPS growth expectation this year? I guess if end market trends don't pick up meaningfully, the promotional intensity remains elevated, and then tariffs certainly lower now, still weigh on margins. So I guess I'm hoping you could maybe walk us through the key growth drivers given all of that.

Sure, thanks, Bonnie. There's a lot of uncertainty in the market, which we've factored into our guidance. We feel confident about our position for the first half of the year and our outlook for the rest of the year. However, if the market categories decline further, and if tariffs increase along with rising raw material prices, it could change things significantly. That said, based on current raw material prices and exchange rates, we are optimistic about the guidance we shared this morning. Overall, we believe we are in a good situation; our strategy appears effective. We hope to see improvements in the categories, especially with strong investments and innovations planned for the latter half of the year, which we expect will generate excitement in the market. So, overall, we feel we are in a solid position. Stan?

Yes. The only thing I'd add to that, if you kind of look at what changed from last guidance to this guidance. We saw a reduction in tariffs. We saw a benefit in FX, but those were offset by slowing categories where we saw that impact on organic and then the increase in raw materials. So those kind of balance out. But when we look underneath what gives us confidence for the year, we're still going to invest in this business. We have roughly flat advertising. We're going to deliver roughly flat gross profit margin. So the team's ability to manage productivity, to drive funding the growth, to manage our expenses, we're confident in those to be able to deliver this guidance down the year.

I heard another CPG company mentioned...

Sorry, Robert. We're having a hard time hearing you. Can you repeat that?

Is this any better? Sorry about that. Can you hear better now?

Yes. First of all, we've taken prices consistently over the years in Brazil, and that environment tends to be far more accommodating to price increases. Now we've seen food prices, as you mentioned, move pretty quickly. And overall, I think that's created a short-term cautiousness with the consumer. But again, this plays back to the fact that we've been investing in brand health for the last 4 to 5 years. And the brands are as strong as they've ever been in Latin America relative to how we measure them. So we feel quite comfortable, particularly with the innovation that we have that we can take pricing through the innovation on the premium side. We talked about Colgate Total and some of the success we're having incrementality there, and that was launched at a premium price. So we feel a collection of innovation, good RGM efforts, and the strength of the brand give us confidence that we can continue to take some pricing. Foreign exchange was obviously a headwind initially. So we've had to adjust for that. We took some pricing in the second quarter at the end of the quarter. We'll see that balance through the back half of the year. But overall, we feel good about where we are from a pricing standpoint. As I mentioned upfront, though, the Brazilian categories have been a little softer than we expected. But we'll anticipate that as we move through the back half. I talked about price sizing changes, getting the elasticity across our different price points in the right place, and we feel that we've got a good strategy as we've done historically in that market where things have slowed.

Noel, I wanted to pick back up on the prioritization of innovation within the 2030 strategy because it's been a big focus of the 2025 strategy. So as we look forward, when you think about doubling down and stepping up innovation capabilities, is it simply objective of more and more broad-based innovation? Is it specifically more premium innovation? Is it innovation better aligned to unique insights to enhance ROI? Probably a combination of all of the above. But I'm just curious if we could home in on exactly where you see the most opportunity for further innovation efficacy? Again, in the context of what I think has been a pretty good innovation advancement story over the last 5 years.

Thank you, Steve. We are pleased with how we have utilized some of the funding from our 2025 strategy to boost innovation. The internal KPIs indicate that our efforts are effective. However, we recognize the need to improve our H2 and H3 innovation. This encompasses breakthrough and transformational projects, which naturally take longer to develop and yield results. We will focus on incubating more H2 and H3 innovations globally, which requires additional resources and funding. In some regions, we are not completely satisfied with our agility and speed in implementing H1 innovations. We aim to bring more significant ideas to the market, particularly for H1, where we believe we have previously fallen short. While we have improved in this area, there are a few regions where we acknowledge the need for increased efforts, and that will be the focus for allocating resources.

Noel, I wanted to follow up on Hill's. This might be a question for Stan regarding modeling. As the private label wraps up in July, it will still affect the profit and loss statement through the first half of next year. To clarify that, I think with a 5% organic growth, you could be the top pet competitor in North America, and likely even globally. What is it about the category right now that enables you to grow at such a rapid pace? We monitor various pet food companies, and they all seem to be facing challenges. Although you've mentioned that the category is leveling out, I want to delve deeper into what specifically is allowing Hill's to excel at such a remarkable rate currently.

Thanks, Pete. I’ll focus on the latter part of your question, and Stan can address the other side. Our overall strategy remains consistent with what we’ve been discussing for the past four or five years. We've certainly increased our investment levels, but it’s not solely about the enhanced advertising for that brand. It’s the innovation and the range of innovative products we've introduced to the market while staying true to our core focus on high-end therapeutic brands that provide genuine nutritional benefits for pet owners and earn the support of professionals. We're committed to this strategy and are targeting the growth segments where we believe our brand can be most effective. We've mentioned growth in wet food, cat products, and small dogs. We’re strategically allocating R&D resources to these growth areas, which is reflected in the growth we’re experiencing. In this quarter, we saw substantial progress in wet food, cat products, and therapeutic options, largely driven by our prescription diet innovations, as well as in the small dog category. Our approach remains consistent, and we recognize that our brand still has low awareness and penetration. This presents significant potential for us as we work on raising brand awareness, improving distribution, and effectively executing our omnichannel strategy. Overall, we are maintaining a consistent strategy.

So let me take the impact of private label. So as we said, we stopped producing private label in the month of July. There will be shipments here as we ship out that volume. That will be a modest amount here in the third quarter. But now if you think about what happens, we had private label last year, so there will be an impact in the second half. If you think about the impact in Q2, it was roughly 60 basis points. It will be slightly more than that in 3Q and 4Q on a year-on-year basis. So you will see that impact as we had private label last year, and we'll have essentially 0 here in the back half. So the impact will be closer to 80 or 90 basis points.

And that is factored into our guidance.

I wanted to unpack a little bit of the evolution in Asia. India has been a topic this quarter. You called out maybe some softening in urban markets. Where are you seeing this business going from here? And can you just maybe balance the Colgate China versus JV performance and also just how you see the evolution of that important business going forward as well?

Overall, Asia has been a bit softer than we anticipated, primarily due to weaker volume and pricing in the Hawley and Hazel business in China. We're not satisfied with our performance in India, but we are confident about our direction for the second half of the year, which I'll detail further regarding India. In China, we have a mixed situation. The Colgate business is thriving, and our revamped go-to-market strategy from the past few years is showing significant results. We're strategically targeting growth opportunities in the market, along with a solid digital strategy to expand in the rapidly growing e-commerce segment. For Hawley & Hazel, we need to adjust our go-to-market approach, particularly in China, where we need to better navigate the wholesaler channel and enhance our competitiveness online. We're investing resources learned from our Colgate operations and other global markets to equip the Hawley & Hazel team for success in the competitive online environment. We're beginning to see improvements, although it will take time for the Hawley & Hazel business to recover, but we believe we will regain momentum. In India, we've noticed some sluggishness in urban markets, which we plan to tackle in the second half with an enhanced innovation strategy. We are currently relaunching our primary product line, Colgate Total, and have some premium innovations planned for the second half and into 2026. It is crucial to effectively penetrate urban markets and execute better there. On a positive note, our e-commerce business is experiencing significant growth, with a 500 basis point increase in market share. As this segment matures, we anticipate favorable trends from it. Overall, we are focused on improving urban execution and relaunching our core brands. Additionally, we identified a need to update our pricing structure at the entry level, particularly for our INR 10 products, which we are currently addressing. We're optimistic about seeing positive outcomes in the second half.

I was wondering if you could talk about the sales run rate and the expectation to improve slightly in the second half versus first half to get to sort of a 2% for the full year. If you could talk a little bit about what's going to drive that acceleration? Is it more of a view of a slight rebound in the category growth or more of your initiatives to improve your share? And then on the restructuring, a lot of the things you discussed on the restructuring sound like things you were already doing. So is there a component of it that's new? Or is this more of a fast track of existing initiatives? And is there any headcount reduction or a particular look at a region or category that will be more of a focus?

Great. Thanks, Olivia. Let me take the first part of that, and I'll let Stan take the second. So on our confidence on the guidance relative to the back half, again, first and foremost, we've got good advertising levels planned in the back half, consistent with where we were in 2024. So we feel good about that. We've got a strong innovation pipeline that we've executed in some of it in the second quarter, which will play out more in the second half. We've taken some pricing and have opportunities in certain geographies to take more pricing in the back half. And clearly, we don't expect the categories to get worse from here. In fact, we expect them to get modestly better, but not significantly better. So the guidance anticipates all of that. So again, we will see where the consumer goes, but we're being cautiously optimistic and prudent based on what we're seeing in the categories right now, and that's reflected in our guidance.

So on the productivity program, as we said, $200 million to $300 million completed in 3 years. We're not going to go into detailed specifics here. But as we said, it would be a combination of optimizing our supply chain and then looking at areas where we think that we can optimize where we have our allocation of resources. So as we look to invest in some areas, we're going to have to get more efficient in other areas. And what I would say is, as we grow over time, inherently, we have to rebalance those assets over time. That includes hard assets as well as headcount. So we'll disclose more on that in time as we execute those programs.

I wanted to revisit your prepared remarks on this call, specifically when you discussed sharpening offerings and delivering value to the consumer. I'm curious if there are particular markets where you see the need for this. You also mentioned the importance of finding ways to implement incremental pricing due to reduced inflation, which feels like a dual challenge. I'd like to understand better how to approach enhancing value while also seeking incremental price increases. First, which markets are you focusing on for sharpening price points, and how do you plan to navigate these two different objectives?

Yes. Thanks, Lauren. So on the price pack, this is pretty much is going to be consistent around the world. But the areas where we see a little bit more sensitivity are clearly in some of the emerging markets where opening price points are critically important. So I mentioned the INR 10 price point in India, getting the price pack architecture right on that. We see some opportunities in Latin America. I would say likewise in Europe and in the U.S., getting price pack architectures in some of our categories is critically important to ensure that we not only are providing value at the opening price point but making sure that, that value transcends through the entire portfolio. Now the way we balance that is the portfolio, we compete at opening price points, mid-price points and premium price points. And we have a very concerted effort to continue to drive premiumization, and that continues to be the biggest growth opportunity we have around the world in terms of where our category sits today. So the Colgate Total relaunch, as an example, we've taken significant pricing behind that in certain markets that will give us more RGM and more pricing and value in the category. So we'll continue to execute that. Our premiumization in the whitening category, likewise, we'll continue to execute and support that quite aggressively to drive the top end of the market. So it really is a balanced approach, how do we think about making sure we're being a little bit more tactical with price pack architecture from promo packs while at the same time, making sure that we're driving value through the categories by some of the premiumization opportunities we have. So again, balance between the 2.

Noel, I want to return to the topic of North America, specifically regarding the balance between top line growth and margin restoration. We've often discussed the focus on profit dollars instead of just margins. However, considering the competitive environment, softness in consumer demand, and market share challenges, it seems we are facing issues with both top line performance and significantly reduced margins. As we contemplate the direction of the North America business, how important is it to you to restore profit margins, given the considerable erosion we have witnessed in recent years? I would appreciate your insights on this matter.

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. Listen, simple, a significant priority for us. We need to get the profit margins back up in the U.S. That's going to be through a combination of our innovation strategy and the resources we put into North America to ramp up the innovation, particularly on the premium side. We've seen some of our competitors do some innovation that's driving some real value in the categories. We know we can replicate and do better than that. So we'll continue to accelerate that. But getting profit margins, both from a dollar and a percent up in the North America business continues to be a significant priority. I'm very encouraged by how the team is approaching the business, how we're thinking about the opportunities across all of our categories, not just the focus that we had on Oral Care, but both on Personal Care and Home Care. And as we look at some of the productivity initiatives, we clearly will be allocating some resources into North America to dial up the innovation, particularly. But good funding there. We need to get the profit margins up both dollar and percentage-wise, and that's a focus for that team.

So I wanted to just round out the category commentary. Noel, you mentioned that you expect categories to get modestly better as we move through the balance of the year. And I would be curious, is that a broad-based comment? Or are there certain markets where you have greater confidence in that improvement? And conversely, are there any markets where you see category trends moderating or at risk of moderating?

It's pretty much a broad-based comment. Overall, if I take on a constant dollar basis, maybe to provide some granularity here, our categories are growing somewhere between 2% and 3% on a constant dollar basis globally. Volumes are slightly positive if we take the aggregate category growth around the world. So if you go back historically, you've seen, obviously, volume perform a little bit better, closer to 1% historically and the constant dollars improving probably 100 basis points historically. So we expect a very modest acceleration across the board. Certainly, in categories like toothpaste, we'll see that probably come back sooner rather than later. Some of all of our categories are not necessarily discretionary. They're daily use categories, but there are certain businesses that in the Home Care where consumers amortize their usage over longer periods of time and are more cautious. So we expect some of the Home Care categories to perhaps come back a little slower than we'd see some of the Personal Care and Oral Care categories. Yes. Thanks, everyone. Again, I think we're deploying our strategy very effectively around the world. We saw that through the consistency and the improvement in the quarter. We have great confidence in our ability to keep an eye on both the short term and the long term with our strategy, particularly excited about the 2030 and getting started with that. Let me put a special thanks out to all Colgate-Palmolive people around the world who are operating in, obviously, a more challenged environment, but we appreciate all the hard work and what they're doing to deliver for our shareholders. Thanks, everyone. We'll talk to you soon.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect.