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The
company's shares, already up 14% this year, rose almost 2% in
early deals after it released numbers that also showed strong
gains in sales across most of its divisions.
Overall net sales in the unit which houses brands like Mr Clean
and Tide rose 14% in the first quarter, as consumers stocked up
on anything they could get their hands on to clean their homes
and potentially slow the spread of the virus.
The company said "personal cleansing" grew 30% with double digit
sales in every region, while its Home Care organic sales were up
more than 30%.
It also reported a 12% increase in volumes in its Health Care
segment, which sells Oral-B toothbrushes and Crest toothpaste.
Full-year sales should now rise by 3% to 4%, compared with a
prior forecast of a 1% to 3% increase, the company said.
The outlook raise followed that of rival Reckitt Benckiser <RB.L>,
on a jump in demand for its Lysol and Dettol cleaning products.
Dettol sales rose 50% in the quarter, the British consumer goods
maker said.
Cincinnati-based P&G also raised and narrowed its fiscal 2021
core earnings per share forecast. It now expects it to be up 5%
to 8%, compared with a prior forecast of a 3% to 7% increase.
Organic sales growth outlook was also increased to 4% to 5% from
an earlier range of 2% to 4%.
It also said it would buy back more shares, targeting $7 billion
to $9 billion in fiscal 2021, from the $6 billion to $8 billion
it aimed for earlier.
The maker of Gillette products said net sales rose to $19.32
billion from $17.80 billion in the three months to Sept. 30,
beating analysts' average estimate of $18.38 billion, according
to IBES data from Refinitiv.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath and Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru;
Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Patrick Graham)
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