Good morning. Welcome to today's Colgate-Palmolive Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded and is being simulcast live at www.colgatepalmolive.com.
Now for opening remarks, I'd like to turn this call over to EVP, Investor Relations, Claire Ross.
Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings release conference call. This is Claire Ross, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Today's conference call will include forward-looking statements.
Actual results could differ materially from these statements. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and are made on the basis of our views and assumptions at this time. Please refer to the earnings press release and our most recent filings with the SEC, including our 2025 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings, all available on our website for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.
These remarks also include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude certain items from the reported results, including those identified in tables 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 on the second quarter earnings press release. A full reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measures and related definitions are included in the earnings press release. Joining me on the call this morning are Noel Wallace, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Stan Sutula, Chief Financial Officer; and John Faucher, EVP, M&A and Special Projects.
Noel will provide you with his thoughts on our results and our 2026 outlook. We will then open it up for Q&A. Noel?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Well, thanks, Claire, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin today's discussion, I wanted to pause and recognize someone who's been a pillar to our investor team and to our company for quite some time. John Faucher will be retiring at the end of September, making today his 40th quarterly earnings call with the company and his 29th alongside me.
John brought a rare combination of investor perspective, great business judgment and strategic thinking not only to our business and our earnings process, but to our M&A work, our Board discussions and broader shareholder engagement. He's taught me a lot about value creation. He's been a fantastic adviser to our leadership team and a dedicated partner to the entire analyst and investor community.
I know you know John, who has been a prolific quoter of pop culture. So it's only fitting for me to end with an infamous Han Solo quote from Star Wars. So thank you, John, and May the 4th be with you.
Thanks, Noel.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
So with that, let's get on to the quarter. We're pleased to have delivered another quarter of strong top and bottom line growth, particularly in the context of continued global volatility. Our strong results this quarter across our financial statements were broad-based with organic sales growth in 4 of 5 divisions and 3 of our 4 categories.
We delivered solid gross margin expansion before a modest tariff benefit. Base business EPS came in ahead of our expectations even as we delivered a double-digit increase in advertising. Our balance sheet and cash flow performance through the second quarter is also very strong with free cash flow up 18%, and we returned $1.4 billion to shareholders.
The strength of our global operating model, combined with the strong execution on the ground continues to drive our performance. As was the case last quarter, our sales growth was led by emerging markets, which were up mid-single digits, driven by India, Brazil, Mexico and China. We also had strong contributions from our European markets as we continue to drive organic growth and market share gains through innovation and omni demand generation.
Our Hill's business was also a contributor to growth as it continues to outperform the category with premium science-led innovation. We will work to maintain this global momentum while driving improvement in the U.S., where we were not satisfied with our performance, as you saw in the commentary. Here are some of the actions we're taking to change the trajectory of U.S. business in the second half.
Continued scale-up of our '26 and '27 innovation, we're pleased with the performance of our recent innovation like Optic White Pro Series with ActivShine Technology and our expansion of Fabuloso in new forms. We will continue to drive these new products with increased distribution and strong brand support. With heightened competition in many of our categories, we will take surgical actions by category and channel to drive market share improvement while still executing behind our revenue growth management playbook.
And we've also planned for higher levels of brand support across our core businesses to drive both our equities and win at the point of purchase. On a global basis, we'll continue to invest behind and scale our capabilities in areas like innovation, data, analytics, digital and AI. This leaves us well-positioned to deliver perceivable superior products to accelerate category growth and drive market share improvement.
We believe our efforts in revenue growth management, Promo AI and funding the growth give us the ability to invest in advertising to build our brands while driving profit and EPS growth, even in a period of significant cost inflation. We will also deliver against our strategic growth and productivity program as we build the right organizational structure to deliver against our 2030 strategy. We've executed a strong first half of the year.
While there are still some uncertainties ahead, we are optimistic the strength of our global model will continue to deliver both in the short-term and set us up for long-term success. And with that, I'd be happy to take your questions.
Our first question today comes from Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley.
First, best wishes to John. Thanks for all your help through the years, and we'll miss you on these calls. And then, Noel, I wanted to touch on the Pet division.
Clearly, pretty soft category dynamics in the quarter, but obviously, Hill's is performing well from a share standpoint. So just any perspective around the category softness? Do you think we're sort of nearing a bottom?
But more importantly, how do you think the Hill's business is positioned relative to that category softness? And can these share gains continue? And then also, just if you look at pet organic sales growth, even adding back the private label discontinuations, it's really pricing that drove the organic sales growth.
So just any perspective on your ability to continue to realize pricing in pet? And last, sorry for the multiparts, but I think it's important to probably touch on Prime and the plans there and how significant that can be to your business as you think looking out over the next couple of years.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks, Dara, for the question. Let me start broad-based.
Another, we think, impressive quarter for Hill's. And as you rightly call out, in a tough market environment, we delivered solid organic growth. If you look at it ex private label at 4%, so well above the category, which is more or less flat right now, particularly in the U.S., where we continue to grow at 4%.
So U.S. a little softer than some of the emerging markets and global businesses. Private label, as you well know, had a 200 basis point negative impact to volume. So ex private label, volume was roughly flat in the quarter on a tough comp and a tough market.
So by and large, we're very pleased. Why is that? We grew in all segments across the business that we're focused on, except for Science Diet Dog, where we've talked about the migration to small pets and large pets certainly deteriorating in terms of their ownership as a function of that, the dry dog food business down a little bit, but everything else up, particularly in the areas where we've been building momentum: cat, wet and small paws.
The other impressive number in the quarter was our therapeutic business, which continues to grow very, very nicely, both from volume and pricing, which is helping to not only drive that strong gross margin acceleration, but the positive mix we had in the quarter as well. Margin performance, as I just mentioned, was good. Operating margin was up nicely as we continue to increase the advertising as a percent of sales.
So strong advertising levels once again in Hill's, and we would further expect to do that in the back half of this year as we look to accelerate category growth. E-commerce, likewise, another growth driver, strong businesses across some of the pure-play retailers, and we did well on Prime Day. So overall, we think we're executing against the right elements, particularly in the U.S. Our international business was up solid mid-single digits.
So again, an area of opportunity as we continue to drive penetration and growth of the science-based premium segment of the market. Specifically on Prime, the Prime business continues to do very, very well in Australia. They were up very nicely in the quarter on top of a significant growth in the first quarter.
So we're very pleased with the continued acceleration of that. But I think more importantly, we've learned an immense amount about the Prime launch, particularly around the manufacturing process of delivering high-quality, consistent fresh products, and that's been very much built into the launch of the fresh that we're rolling out, as you have heard right now in the U.S. It's anchored against single proteins. So we believe there's real science behind it.
It's clearly going to be professionally driven. We're focused on getting the profession to underscore the importance of the quality of these products and the efficacy values they bring. We've launched 3 single protein diets.
So we're in the midst of rolling that out and phasing that out. It will be a very thoughtful launch. Again, as I've mentioned in previous conversations, we're not looking to generate significant volume right now.
We're looking to really build the brand and underscore the science-driven nature of our product and the quality of our product. The manufacturing process is going very well. The rollout is going as we plan.
We'll have more to talk about that later in the year. But overall, market shares continue to grow, certainly in the segments that we're focused on. We had good market share performance.
In terms of the category, I do think the category has bottomed out, but we shall see, as we see inflation in the U.S. market, we'll probably see the category continue to be under a bit of pressure. But as we've said consistently, we have real growth opportunities in the segments that we're going after where we're under-indexed. So again, on wet, on cat, on small paws and certainly the international business as we continue to go after markets where we think we can build the science-based credentials that deservingly of this product for the long-term health of the brand.
So in essence, a good quarter for us and some good growth opportunities as we move forward. Category will continue to be pressured, but the opportunities to grow the top line are there for us.
Next question comes from Peter Grom with UBS.
So John, I also want to say thank you. John, thank you and maybe to keep with the pop culture references, I specifically want to thank you for never jamming me at the drive-thru. Maybe now to my real question, I was hoping to ask about gross margin.
You noted in the prepared remarks some benefits from refunds in the quarter. But even after backing that out, it was a pretty strong result. So maybe can you unpack how that came in relative to your expectations?
What drove the strength? And then looking ahead, gross margin are now expected for the year, but can you maybe walk through the phasing of it just in the context of 3Q, I would imagine having peak inflation.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks, Peter. Let me start strategically in terms of how we're thinking about gross profit and some of the decisions and focus areas, and I'll let Stan unpack a bit more of the details on it.
Clearly, gross margin was strong in the quarter, up 100 basis points, as you point out, up 90 basis points versus the previous quarter as well. So we got a little bit of a modest benefit from refunds, but the bulk of the growth definitely came through our core business and some of the initiatives that we're taking around the world. Clearly, some inflationary pressures that we put into the P&L. We talked about getting those costs upfront into the P&L on the first quarter call, and that's really important as we look to manage the business to ensure that we're proactively getting those costs into the income statement.
So our teams on the ground are executing pricing and revenue growth management and using all of our tools to generate profit growth as we look to increase the advertising, as you saw in the quarter. So that clearly is happening. And we'll continue, obviously, to focus on the elements of our revenue growth management.
Our Promo AI tools are being scaled around the world. We're seeing benefits from that. We had strong funding the growth in the quarter, doubling down on that as we move forward.
We don't anticipate we'll see any more refunds coming or very insignificant moving forward. So we're focused on the core health of the gross margin line, and that's really driven by mix, funding the growth and the pricing that we have and the overall discipline that we're seeing. It was great to see a little mix come through in the quarter as well.
That is intentional, looking at the growth opportunities we see around the world and our more focused category country combinations on where we'll see real benefits from that. So overall, strategically, the teams are executing well. The pricing is in the P&L. We'll watch inflation carefully.
As you saw in the prepared remarks, we expect cost of goods to a peak in the back half of this year as well as tariffs, but we're well ahead of that right now, and we'll continue to manage as we move forward. So with that, let me have Stan break it out a bit more for you.
Yes. Thanks, Noel. Let me unpack that a little bit more.
First, we are very pleased with the margin performance here in Q2. And it was multifaceted with good RGM, good productivity, the pricing, the mix, a very, very strong performance here by the teams. But we have our eyes wide open.
And as we said in our first quarter call, we look to make sure our teams understand where we see material prices going so they can anticipate that in their pricing, their RGM actions for the rest of the year. On material prices, they're slightly below our expectations as the higher raw material costs were partially offset by the benefits of the tariff refunds in the quarter. Now as you look at the back half of the year, Q3 is essentially largely locked in, pretty much in line with where we previously guided.
Q4 might be a little bit lower than our previous assumptions given oil more in the $90 range, but we're still seeing impacts related to uncertainty about the war. Now as we look at the back half, we have easier compares on a year-on-year basis. We've increased our gross margin guidance to roughly flat for the year, but we do have to keep in mind that we do expect the higher raw materials and tariffs will be higher in the second half of the year than they were in the second quarter.
The reason for the raise is our execution here on margin and the components that go around that. So we're confident on the year to be flattish up from down.
The next question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.
Just wanted to talk a little bit about the balance between volume and price/mix, particularly as we look into the second half. There's been a lot of strength from some other consumer companies, particularly in emerging markets. I know you had strong, in particular, Brazil and India this quarter.
But just curious how you're thinking about volumes and acceleration or lack thereof in the second half.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Lauren, thank you. Yes, the back half, at least as we see it right now, we got a lot of pricing in the first half. We anticipate we will be a little bit more volume driven in the back half of this year as we see the continued focus on the momentum we have, particularly internationally in some of our big markets, particularly around the premium side of the business as well.
So we see opportunities on the volume more or less in the back half. We're not anticipating that categories will inflect any differently in the back half right now. So we've assumed more or less sustained based on what we've seen in June and the early parts of July, so pretty consistent.
So our focus will be on getting the new products executed, driving brand penetration, delivering a balanced pricing volume, but slightly more towards volume in the back half as we move around the world, and that will be pretty consistent market by market.
The next question comes from Robert Ottenstein with Evercore ISI.
The commentary on China continues to sound a little bit more positive. So I'd love to -- if you could do a bit of a dive on the Chinese market, which is always changing, the competitive dynamics there, changes in how the Chinese are shopping, which we're picking up as we look at the beauty sector in particular. And just an update on the turnaround for Darlie and how you're going to be able to keep up momentum for Colgate at the same time.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Thanks for the question. You're absolutely right. China is such a fascinating market.
I think I maybe alluded to in the first quarter, we've had all of our operating heads in China in the last 6 months to learn from some of the incredible innovation going on in that market. Particularly around go-to-market, whether it's social media platforms, whether it's business-to-consumer platforms. It's just fascinating to get everyone inserted there.
While I think China is way ahead of the rest of the world and some of it will apply, some of it won't. It certainly promotes a significant amount of innovative thinking from our teams and I think a real benefit to how we want to execute in other areas around the world. That being said, our businesses continue to do well, particularly our Colgate China business now consistently delivering mid-single-digit performance, good volume performance in the quarter, particularly out of our CP China business, despite a significant amount of disruption in that market in terms of new platforms, declines in brick-and-mortar shifts to e-commerce as a result and some very aggressive competitive environments as well.
So overall, very solid performance. We continue to invest behind the China business, both from the Colgate and the Darlie side in terms of marketing. A lot of unique innovation going into that market.
We've rolled out some of that in the world. The Optic White Purple is a perfect example of taking an innovation that was developed in China with a social-first model and then rolling that around the world, and we've seen very nice share growth, incremental share growth as a result of that. And the other important aspect is -- I'll mention is the digital talent that we're getting out of China, some of the best in the world that we're exporting into other markets as we speak.
Hawley & Hazel was up, as you mentioned, up low single digits organic growth, another quarter of good volume growth, mainly driven from the B2C area and some good innovation as dual chamber continues to do well. We're not out of the woods on Hawley & Hazel yet. We still have a lot of work to do, but some exciting plans in the next 6 to 9 months around the brand and around how we're structuring innovation and technology there and ultimately, how we're going to continue to capitalize on the shift towards online, which the Darlie business needs to capitalize on quite quickly.
As I mentioned, Greater China was up mid-single digits, which is terrific to see. We're stepping up our innovation and our go-to-market strategies there and executing quite well. So my sense is still a challenged category, though.
The categories are basically brick-and-mortar down, e-commerce offsetting some of that. But in general, we would assume the market is probably down 1% to 2% in total, but we're executing well, obviously, consuming above those numbers. But it's a tough market.
We're going to continue to be very thoughtful on how much we put into China, given some of the ROI that we're seeing in some of the new platforms that are emerging, but by and large, executing top line and delivering some good gross margin, and we see the profitability coming behind that. So more to come out. We'll keep you up to date as we learn more.
The next question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.
So it's great to see a little bit higher range for earnings this morning. I'm curious, though, why not raise the lower end of the organic sales growth guidance range. You're running 2.6% organic sales year-to-date.
The lower end of the range would imply flattish for the back half of the year. You've got easier compares going into calendar Q3. Is that just a bit of conservatism in the outlook?
Is that some uncertainty on North America? We're hearing about retailer boycotts and certain retailers in Europe. I'm not sure, but it just struck me given your year-to-date run rates.
And so I'd love a bit more perspective on just how you're thinking about different ranges and some of the different upside and downside scenarios, perhaps you're considering into the back half of the year?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks, Chris. Clearly, a solid quarter, as you point out, from a top line standpoint, I think underscores the resilience of our model and the fact that our strategy is working around the world and the global footprint that we have and the category combinations that we compete in.
That being said, you've alluded to just a few of the uncertainties in the world that we live in today. Clearly, the various wars, the impact on consumer confidence, the huge ups and downs we're seeing in the categories. We obviously talked about the significant drop in the North America categories in May.
They did come back in June, but still below historical numbers. So we're seeing a lot of volatility. And despite the fact that we're executing above the market growth around the world, we didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves at this point relative to where the top line is.
Clearly, we're shooting for higher numbers, as you say, and that is clearly what we're hoping to achieve, but there's a lot of volatility in the market, a lot of consumer uncertainty as we measure it, particularly coming out of the higher gasoline prices at the pump. So we're going to be prudent and thoughtful there. And as we see things improve as we move through the back half of the year, we'll come back and look at that again.
But right now, we felt it was a prudent place to land.
The next question comes from Andrea Teixeira with JPMorgan.
Congrats again, John, and thank you for everything. I think we go back 26 years. So good to see everything you've done for the community.
Just as we go back, Noel, you just mentioned Chris' question, the environment in the U.S. I just want to kind of double-click on your comments on the prepared remarks. You said June getting better. Is there any -- you highlighted obviously more innovation and you always have been kind of disciplined from a pricing perspective.
Is there anything you can say about the price points or how competitive you are in kind of like the entry-level pricing? And then if we -- how comfortable you are on that perspective and how comfortable you are in terms of like your stats for the second half?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thank you. I think your question is specific to the U.S. And if that's the case, that's how I'll answer it.
But if not, let me know, and I can talk about it more on a global basis. Clearly, we're all particularly the North America group, disappointed with the second quarter. On top of the category softness we saw in May that I talked about, we called that out at Deutsche Bank.
We've seen heightened competitive activity, and we've seen obviously some -- in parallel, some inventory reductions from key retailers come through in the quarter as well. We think the softness in May, as I just alluded to, was really the peak gasoline prices, particularly in the U.S. and the commensurate impact on consumer confidence and people being very, very careful. The categories, as I mentioned, did rebound in June, and we've seen more or less that consistent in July as well, but still below historical numbers.
So we need to be mindful of that, but certainly not where they were in May, which is it bodes well. Further impacting the shipment numbers in North America were the inventory reductions we talked about. We're shipping consumption more or less at 1, with shipments down 3.
So there's some noise in those numbers. We're not as focused on the inventory reductions as we are being very deliberate about the actions that we need to take on the things that we control. And I think we've got a good line of sight of what actions that we need to take to continue to stabilize the market shares moving forward.
So let me talk about a couple of those for you. So we're going to step up support to accelerate particularly premium innovation in the toothpaste category and quite frankly, across some of our other categories as well. You saw the recent launch of Optic White, and we're going to continue to focus on that.
We've launched some extensions in Fabuloso and more of that to come. So we will continue to step up our '26 and '27 innovation grids, particularly on the premium side. Specific to your question on price gaps, we did identify some very select price gaps in certain retailers and certain categories against some of our competition.
We will address that, but be very prudent and thoughtful on how we do that. We can't be uncompetitive in terms of pricing and promotion, but we want to be sure that we're not leading that further down. So we're going to be very thoughtful on how we go after some of those channel opportunities.
And as I also mentioned, we're going to step up our spending in the back half of this year, not competitive in some of the categories in terms of advertising support. And so we'll accelerate that, and that's obviously built into our guidance as well. So clearly, the things that we can control, we're going after it.
We're going to be very intentional. We recognize that the numbers aren't where they need to be. It won't be a linear improvement, but we'll see certainly sequential improvement as we move through the back half of the year.
The next question comes from Filippo Falorni with Citi.
I also want to say thank you to John for all the help through the years. Best of luck to you. So I wanted to ask about Latin America.
That business continues to do very well for you, both on volume and pricing growth. I'm just curious, like from a volume standpoint, what is driving the market share gains, if you can expand a bit there, both in Mexico and Brazil? And then as you think about the back half of the year, how sustainable this consistent performance is, especially as you lap the Colgate Total reformulation last year?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thank you, Filippo. Yes, as you mentioned, a good quarter for LatAm, another good quarter with up more or less 5%.
And what's pleasing is the balance between both pricing and volume. So pricing up 2.8% and volume 2.6%. Volume, as you mentioned, bounced back -- has bounced back, quite frankly, in the last 3 quarters, with obviously a slightly easier comp, but the good news is the volume is coming back.
Part of that is certainly driven by getting the total issue we had behind us as we continue to rebuild the total share, and that's coming back nicely. A strong innovation platform that we had across all of our core businesses, particularly in Brazil and in Mexico. And you saw the Brazil and Mexico numbers, I think, that we alluded to with Brazil up high single digits and Mexico up mid-single digits and Oral Care in general across Latin America, up high mid-single digits.
So a good execution against a tougher market environment where categories still are running more or less mid-single digits, but not back to where some of the historical growth numbers were. So we feel like we're gaining penetration and certainly rebuilding the premium side of the business where we lost a little bit on total. From a category standpoint, all 3 of our categories were up, had strong growth, as I mentioned, in Oral Care, but we were up low to mid in Personal and Home Care behind some of the big relaunches on our core businesses in that region.
So pleasingly, it's pretty broad-based. And as I alluded to earlier, the shares on Colgate Total are coming back and those have improved sequentially, particularly in Brazil, and we're starting to see that as we comp against some of the issues we had last year in some of the other markets. FX was a bit of a tailwind, but still very, very volatile with some of the political and economic uncertainties in the region.
We won't expect to get the FX tailwind in the second half that we had in the first half. So we'll be managing pricing and inflation very carefully with our revenue growth management.
The next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies.
John, also congratulations. If you decide you get bored and want to give Wall Street another whirl. Jefferies is always hiring.
I'll consider that, Kaumil.
Yes. I think I already know the outcome of that consideration. A couple of things just to understand this inventory thing.
Is it a shipping below consumption? Is that a one and done? Is it something that snaps back later and it could be a tailwind into the back half?
And then on Hill's, particularly Hill's and the rollout of Prime, how do you manage the message on the value to veterinarians of Fresh while also the core of the message of what the Hill's business is, which is selling to them the idea of the benefits of Hill's, which is dry. So just curious how you balance that between -- balance that messaging.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Sure. Thanks for the question. Let me talk with inventory first, and then I'll come back on fresh.
Clearly, as the market softened in May, retailers took note of that. And as you would expect, probably adjusted inventories thinking we need to manage possibly to a lower baseline relative to where the consumer was. And whether that comes back or not, I think you always need to bear in mind that our retailers are looking to manage their business with the least amount of inventory possible.
Our focus is how do we drive consumption, how do we drive the top line faster and faster as we move forward. And that's what we're going to be laser-focused on, getting the execution of our new products, getting the promotion gaps that we have addressed but do it thoughtfully and making sure that we have the investment in the back half of the P&L to generate sequential improvement as we move -- compare the second half versus the first half. So we will see what the retailers do.
We have not built that into our numbers that the retailers will then load up with inventory once again. We anticipate that things will continue to be choppy. So we need to focus on the things that we can control.
Your question on the fresh launch, which is quite interesting. As we have said consistently, we are not going to get into emerging segments unless we can bring the brand platform to life. And the brand platform for Hill's is science-driven nutrition.
And so we have spent a lot of time looking as we made the acquisition of Prime to find a brand that was science first. And clearly, the single protein idea and the rationale behind that single protein is it promotes healthy digestion, radiant coats and overall improvements in health is clearly integrated into the launch, and we are going to the profession with a fresh alternative that consumers are asking for, but the profession is looking for a science-based, efficacy-based product that they can trust and recommend. And that's exactly how we plan to build the demand for the product is through the profession.
And so we'll be very thoughtful and methodical on how we do this. We want it, to your point, to build on the Hill's brand name and ensure that science continues to be at the forefront and efficacy continues to be on how it delivers against pet owners' needs. And so that will be the focus.
We think it fits very, very nicely as another extension into our Hill's business. And yes, we have a big dry business -- but as I mentioned earlier, one of the fastest-growing parts of our business is the wet portfolio, and we bring great science into all of our offerings.
The next question comes from Kevin Grundy with BNP Paribas.
John, of course, all the best. It's been a pleasure. Noel, a question for you on advertising and marketing levels and overall satisfaction.
So the spend, as you know, is still near historical levels going back -- as a percent of sales, that is, going back more than 20 years for the company. So on the one hand, encouraging to see such high levels of brand support. On the other hand, maybe a more cynical push, maybe the cost of business is moving higher, ROI, perhaps not quite where you want it to be if we look at organic sales and the fact that that's up kind of 2% to 3%.
So I would love your opinion on kind of where you see it now, one, kind of your overall level of satisfaction with the ROI on the spend. And then number two, do you kind of view this level of 14% of sales, is that the right level for the business going forward?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks. First of all, really pleased in the flexibility that we have in the P&L, our ability to be very focused on driving long-term health of our brands, and that clearly underscores and supports the fact that we want to continue to increase advertising level.
The advertising market and media market in general has become far more sophisticated and at the same time, far more complicated with the various outlets and ways to spend your money. The good news is with all of our data and digital work that we've been doing over the last 2 or 3 years, we're getting much better at measuring ROI and effectiveness of that spend. And certainly, we're seeing the ROIs, particularly as we move more and more into digital, certainly as we move more and more into social and getting clear reads on that, the ROIs are very, very good for us.
So we're pleased that we're getting what we want. And that most important measurement is obviously long-term brand health, which clearly the analysis that we do across our brands in our big core markets suggest that our brands are very, very strong and continue to strengthen. But as we reposition some of those brands into different areas, that requires more advertising that we believe is necessary for the long-term health of the business, and we'll continue to invest behind building those brands.
Some of the category sluggishness that we've seen as well. We need to make sure that as a leader in the categories in which we compete, we're driving excitement and value into the categories. A lot of our science-driven innovation requires us to spend and explain some of the great innovation that we're bringing to the market.
And yes, we'll assess that as we move forward based on where categories evolve. But right now, it's about building brands, particularly in a market where you have a little bit of disintermediation in media and ensuring that we have great analytics to measure the ROI, and we're pleased with both of those right now and anticipate that we'll continue to see that in the model moving forward as you've seen over the last couple of years.
The next question comes from Peter Galbo with Bank of America.
Thanks again to John for the help. Noel, maybe as a follow-up to Filippo's question, I think emerging markets organic sales are running, call it, 6% up through the first quarter. Again, the comps do seem to ease as we get into 3Q.
So just your level of confidence even potentially that, that emerging market total performance could accelerate. And I know you already touched on Brazil and some of the nuance there, but maybe also just the commentary on India, up double digit in the quarter. I think there's, again, a discrete kind of lap in Q3.
You can just remind us of? And any thoughts there would be very helpful.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Clearly, the strength of our global footprint, particularly in emerging markets, we're going to be largely the contributor to category growth. And so category growth, at least in some of our big emerging markets is running roughly mid-single digits.
It slowed a little bit from historical numbers. So our focus is to continue to bring great value. And one of the things that we do a little bit differently in emerging markets is while we continue to have real opportunities on the premium, there are some core markets we're building penetration and creating good value for people to come into the category is very, very important, whether that's in toothpaste, whether that's in cleaners, whether that's in body wash or any other categories, making sure that we have price points that track both the bottom end of the market as well as the premium side of the market.
In markets where we have significant shares like Brazil, clearly, we want to drive more premiumization in those where per capita consumption is high. But we expect -- I don't necessarily expect the categories to inflect that much more positive in the back half. And the reason why is while there's the uncertainty of oil prices and consumer confidence kind of lingering on the top, consumers will still be very thoughtful in terms of their purchases.
Yes, we'll see better growth in emerging markets. But until we get some of this volatility behind us, I don't really fully expect the categories to rebound. Now we need to accelerate the innovation, and that's what we're doing.
We're making sure we're stepping up. I talked about leveraging some of the China know-how from sending our teams to understand how we're doing things there to accelerate some of the excitement that we bring to some of our big emerging markets overall. On the India business, yes, a really strong quarter for us, which is great.
It was balanced, both from an indirect trade as well as a modern trade. We're seeing a lot of our focus on premiumization in that market. While it's still a small part of the market, long term, we see that as a real growth opportunity for the category and for the brand.
And so we have stepped up our focus on the premium side of the business in the modern trade. And we're also getting our price pack architectures in the right place and making sure that we have what we need to compete in the indirect trade. I think you're probably referring to the GST issue in last year.
That is working its way through to pricing on the pack, which is obviously slightly lower than it was historically, and we should see that obviously translate into some better consumption, but you're not going to see massive spikes as a result of that. I think you'll see a very gradual change as more and more consumers come into the category. But a good market for us, we're encouraged.
We need to continue to stay very focused on our strategy there. The team is doing a great job executing, and we have real long-term growth opportunities, particularly on the premium side of the business.
The next question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.
Congratulations from me, too, on your retirement, John. You're definitely going to be missed. I just had a quick question on your organic sales growth guidance.
With half of the year behind us and the first half tracking closer to the midpoint of the range, how should we think about the cadence of growth for the rest of the year? Is it reasonable to assume an acceleration as headwinds related to the private label pet food exit goes away and you lap challenges in Latin America? Any other puts and takes to keep in mind as we think about growth in Q3 and Q4, I guess, especially in context of pressure trends in the U.S.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks, Bonnie. Listen, clearly, from a consumer standpoint, still a lot of uncertainty.
And I think what's somewhat unusual right now is the volatility that we're seeing from month-to-month in category growth numbers. So it's a little bit more difficult to predict, okay, the categories will inflect. And as a result, we'll see stronger growth in the back half.
That being said, we do exit private label. If we get some of these wars behind us, we'll see a little bit of tailwind from that. Clearly, we're expecting to see some marginal improvements in North America as we move through the back half of this year.
So that should help and the strength that we have in emerging markets should help. We're not going to get too specific on where we see organic coming in. But clearly, we still have some headwinds that we're faced with, but we also have some tailwinds on some of the things that we're moving out of.
So we shall see. That's built into the guidance that we have right now in terms of earnings per share. We'll come back and look at the organic as we move through the third quarter.
The next question comes from Rob Moskow with TD Cowen.
I was kind of hoping that there could be just a little more color on why there's such a gap between the tracking data that we're seeing in retail sales from the providers and reported results. This quarter, it's inventory deloading. But in prior quarters, there's been a big gap as well.
Is there something going on in unmeasured channels that you think is not being reflected as well as it should be by these aggregators? Is there something systemic that's not being captured either in e-commerce or in club channels? And maybe this is better offline, but it's not just this quarter, but it's several quarters.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. We'll leave it to Claire and John, maybe to take you through some more detail and maybe get more in the weeds because we've been in the weeds on this, as you can imagine. But the fundamental blocks of that are the inventory destocking that we've seen in tracked channels, right?
And that's where you see the discrepancy. Untracked channels as well, there's been obviously a little bit of change in terms of how they manage things. We've talked about increased couponing and increased promotion as a result of that filtering through.
So there's a multitude of different things. But clearly, the biggest driver there is the inventory depletion that we've had. Now bear in mind, let's recognize we lost some share as well in the quarter.
While the consumption has been good, we've lost a little bit of share that has certainly translated in the untracked channels that's caused a little bit of slippage in the shipments as well. So we need to focus on getting that back, and that's what we're going to concentrate on. Whether the trade decides to reload, we shall see.
My sense is there's still quite a bit of uncertainty in the North America business, and I wouldn't expect to see major swings either way at this point.
The next question comes from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler.
I'll echo the thanks to John as well. I just want to come back to Hill's and see if we can get a little bit more color on some of the fresh launch. I think you characterized it as not as much focused on volume, but some more of a branding initially.
Maybe elaborate on just kind of how you're thinking about that? How broad of a launch is this? Is this just a test?
Or is it kind of full speed ahead? And is it any new channel exposure? What's the competitive positioning maybe like on price point?
Can you just bring to life a little bit some of how you're going to market there?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Sure. Yes. Once again, everything we do on the Hill's brand is focused on respecting the model that we have, which is demand created through the vet, science-driven first and foremost, and ensuring that the pet owner understands the differentiation that we bring to the pet and to the food, hence, why we charge a premium price for it.
So that model is extraordinarily important for us to build the credentials and the science first and the professional backing. So as we -- as you look at basic demand models where we typically put products on the shelf and promote through aggressive advertising and media, this brand will have a very slow and thoughtful build to it. We want to ensure we get the professional backing behind it.
The manufacturing process is obviously more complicated. We want to ensure we deliver the absolute best quality product on a consistent basis. We are using our normal channels, the professional channel as well as pet specialty and the neighborhood vet stores that we've historically always sold our product through, and that will roll out through the balance of this year.
So we're not -- it's not a one shift to all retailers. The manufacturing process will allow us to phase that in through the balance of this year.
Next question comes from Olivia Tong with Raymond James.
Congrats on your retirement, John. And hopefully, you can give your password a little bit of a rest. I was wondering if you guys could compare and contrast the turnaround in Asia Pacific with what you may need to do in the U.S. I realize these are 2 very different markets, but it's been a very nice volume recovery in Asia this year after a pretty difficult 2025, which to your earlier comment, sounds like you think it's sustainable.
So are there learnings from that recovery that you can deploy in North America as you look at driving a change in the arc there?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Thanks, Olivia. And we've had that very same conversation quite a bit in terms of some of the learnings that we've had in Asia about rebuilding the go-to-market model, rebuilding our focus behind our big core businesses and brand building, accelerating our investment posture in some of the momentum areas that we see in the market.
And I think most importantly, stepping up innovation on the premium side of the business, particularly in the online channel, which has been such a pronounced change in the Asian market over the last 4 or 5 years. So I think a lot of similarities relative to North America, getting our go-to-market, going after the channel category combinations where we see real growth opportunities, making sure that the core businesses are strong and most importantly, really stepping up our innovation cycle. And the resources I talked about in the first quarter, I think I mentioned about putting more resources on innovation, and that is underway as we speak, and we'll start to see the benefits of that as we move through '26 into '27.
But innovation, increased brand support, being much more surgical on making sure that our price pack architectures and promotion and coupons are competitive without chasing the bottom on that. We'll let the competitors perhaps take some promotional share because we just don't think that's long term the way we want to drive that business. We have some exciting innovation coming on the business, particularly the premium side of the business, and that's where we need to focus.
We clearly are under-indexed on the premium side, similar to what we saw in Asia, to your point, the online business sells at a 2 to 3 index on an ASP basis in Asia, particularly in China versus the brick-and-mortar. And we have real opportunities to kind of do the same here, and that's what we're going to be focused on with the portfolio of products that we have.
The next question comes from Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank.
Thanks from me as well, John. I appreciate all your help. Noel, I guess I want to focus on Europe because we haven't spoken about that.
And I think it's fair to say that many CPG companies continue to describe Europe as a difficult operating environment. And yet it's been one of your more consistent performers, I'd say, in a market where you seem to be extending some of your advantages versus peers. So I guess just in that context, perspective on your outlook and the expectations for Europe.
And I guess also similar to Olivia's question, whether there are lessons you can take from what's been accomplished in the European region relative to improvements you're now targeting in North America?
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes. Steve, thanks. Yes, a lot, quite frankly, in terms of what we're seeing there, which I think I've described quite a few times, but let me reprise that because it's really important to our strategy.
Globally, at least in our big core businesses, we are under-indexed on the premium side of the market. We took a significant strategic shift in the European market 3 or 4 years ago, which was to focus on the entire portfolio of toothpaste that we have and really leverage the brands where they are strong and where the momentum is in the market. Clearly, the Elmex brand, as you saw in some of the slides that we shared with the earnings release, continues to deliver, and that's at a super premium price to the market.
The super premium side of the category, at least in toothpaste, is the growing part of the market. We're under-indexed there across the world. We've been severely under-indexed there in North America, and that will be the focus.
Europe, we've been able to obviously leverage our portfolio, both on the Colgate side as well as the Elmex and Meridol side to go after the super premium side, and we'll continue to focus on that in Europe. It's been a great market for us. I give the team a lot of credit for -- obviously, with a very challenging retail environment.
They've brought great innovation to our retail partners across all of our categories, which have allowed the categories to remain somewhat robust given the historical numbers that we've seen there. We're still getting volume growth, pricing growth as well. So overall, I attribute it to the strong innovation that we've executed on the premium side of the business.
Good quarter, as you said, despite about a 1% headwind from the Middle East coming through. That would have been on top if we hadn't had that. So overall, Europe continues to execute well.
The emergence of the African region into Europe outside of the Middle East continues to perform quite well as well. So overall, we're starting to see opportunities to manage that portfolio more synergistically across Europe and Africa, and we hope that we'll see some benefit of that flowing through in gross profit longer term and how we drive efficiency and standardization of our portfolio as well. So a good business, innovation, premium and good execution and running through the operating margin line as well has been one of the pillars of success of that division.
The last question today comes from Edward Lewis with Rothschild.
Echo the thanks to John. I'll miss discussing Premier League Football. I should probably say soccer with you.
Well, hopefully, you can have a much better campaign this year, Edward.
Back-to-back 17th finishes perhaps, yes, we'll see. Anyway, no, a lot of discussion on AI and the opportunities you saw there at CAGNY, lots of detail. And you've clearly been very much sort of the vanguard, I think, in the industry of talking about that.
We've seen some comments this year around and in the quarter around Promo AI and the benefits you're seeing. But can you just update us on the developments there around sort of all the AI initiatives and how that might support the improvement in growth in the second half of the year you're hoping to see in the U.S.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes, happy to do that. In fact, we just had our entire senior team vibe coding this week, which has been a fascinating experiment and something that we're pushing quickly. I mean let me start with that.
We've obviously spent a considerable amount of time and effort over the last 3 years training and developing our organization around AI. We launched the internal AI hub and a lot of AI models to ensure our people can access it securely, first and foremost, but more importantly, build confidence with their own AI capabilities. We've trained and upskilled a significant part of our workforce.
I think at the VP level, we're at about 70% in advanced artificial intelligence training. So clearly asking people to use large language models across their work to drive enhanced productivity, and we're seeing it pretty consistently across the board. I think the other extension of that is getting our data in the right place.
We've invested quite aggressively over the last couple of years to ensure that we can enable all of our data to move agentically quickly. So we're building data products that are used across our analytics teams and the tools that we have and now putting agents on top of that, that can connect with it. So that will be an exciting development as we move forward.
Data, not something that we like to tout, but clearly an area of opportunity as you integrate that into your organization way of working and getting people to use Agentic tools to mine that data and hopefully have conversations to optimize how we want to execute against some of the learnings. So speaking of Agentic, we're obviously very excited about some of the opportunities that we see in that. We're redesigning some of our manual processes that are quite complex today with agents embedded into those to take work out, to take time and get faster at what we do.
So we're spending our time really on the high-value process changes that we need to execute across the company. We're also focused on omni demand generation. We talked about innovation, incorporating AI and discovery into our innovation process, both from a marketing standpoint as well as an R&D standpoint.
On omni-demand generation, you've heard me talk a lot about that. That is central to how we're thinking about behaving as a company and organizing our teams. AI will be pivotal in transforming all of our marketing processes in that regard with content creation and factories that we can generate content in one part of the world and immediately utilize it in other parts of the world.
So we're going to focus on that. Agentic Commerce, we've had some discussions on that, not a significant part of the business yet of that. We're obviously staying very close to it.
We'll manage that, but we want to ensure that we're at least appearing in geo searches and our teams are focused on doing that. So a lot going on in the company around AI, exciting in the back half of the year, I think we'll continue to unveil some of the exciting things that we're seeing from it in terms of how we're scaling it. So we've obviously moved from pilots into scale as we speak.
And I think over time, we'll start to hopefully leverage some of the learnings that we're getting and some of the benefits that we're seeing from productivity and ultimately top line growth and bottom line growth for the company.
This concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I will now return the call to Noel Wallace, Colgate's Chairman, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.
Noel Wallace
President, CEO & Chairman
Great. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening to us this morning and your continued interest in the company. I hope you share our confidence that we have the right plans in place to continue to drive hopefully superior returns.
And what remains as we've talked about, a quite volatile operating environment. But I think it speaks to the resilience of our model. But more importantly, I want to thank the 34,000 Colgate people around the world who make us who we are.
Their commitment to their agility and importantly, their passion for serving our consumers and our customers is what brings our strategy to life every day and gives us the confidence in the road ahead for us. So thanks, everyone, and enjoy your summer.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect.
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