United Kingdom
www.gsk.com
Sales: $2.4 billion
Key Personnel:
Andrew Witty, chief executive officer; Emma Walmsley, president, Consumer Healthcare Worldwide.
Major Products:
Oral care products such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, dry mouth and denture care products sold under brand names such as Aquafresh, Sensodyne, Biotene, Polident, Poligrip and Corega.
New Products:
Sensodyne Rapid Relief and Sensodyne Repair and Protect.
Comments:
GlaxoSmithKline is overwhelmingly a pharmaceutical company. In fact, it only makes The International Top 30 list based on its oral care business, but then, GSK sells some of the world’s best-known toothpaste brands. Last year, oral care sales rose 6%, led by a strong performance by Sensodyne, a 50-year-old brand. The company proudly notes that Sensodyne has been the world’s fastest growing toothpaste brand for the past five years. Following a 2010 launch in India, Sensodyne is now available in 124 countries. Biotene, the dry mouth treatment that GSK bought in 2008, performed well too. On the downside, sales of Aquafresh declined slightly last year.
For the first quarter of 2011, oral care sales jumped 12%, led by Sensodyne, which benefitted from the launch of Sensodyne Rapid Relief, which began in 2010, as well as the launch of Sensodyne Repair and Protect that began in the first quarter of this year.
In the US, Sensodyne, Poligrip and Biotene all posted good gains, which helped offset lower sales of Aquafresh.