P&G Updates Investors on Growth Plan

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) held a meeting today in Boston for financial analysts and institutional investors, promising sustained growth in the future.

“We’re confident we have the strategies, brands, innovation pipeline and new market opportunities to sustain our strong growth,” said chairman, president and chief executive A.G. Lafley.

P&G’s sales grew an average of 10% during the past three years, executives said. Earnings a share grew an average of 33%. “These results reflect our focus on keeping P&G’s core businesses healthy, while expanding the core steadily and with discipline,” commented Clayton C. Daley, chief financial officer. He added that the company’s growth model is based on balance across brands and categories, across retail customers and channels and across geographies.

The consumer products group industry continues to provide growth opportunities for companies focused on branding, innovation, scale and go-to-market excellence, P&G executives said. P&G will continue to strengthen its brands by using creative, experiential, consumer-driven innovation and marketing approaches to achieve better brand initiative success.

“P&G’s innovation pipeline is strong,” said Mr. Lafley. “P&G businesses are growing on the strength of leadership innovation that is commanding significant and sustainable price premiums to the market in virtually every category.”

Developing markets are also an opportunity, according to P&G executives. The developing CPG market is about $70 billion-collectively bigger than either Western Europe or North America. Within the next decade, developing markets could grow to equal the size of these two regions combined.

“Developing markets are a disproportionate opportunity for P&G versus competitors,” said Robert A. McDonald, P&G vice chairman, global operations. “Developing markets represent only about 21% of our total sales versus up to 45% for some competitors.”