Procter & Gamble holds steady as consumer confidence plunges

Posted Apr 30th 2008 9:09AM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Procter and Gamble (PG), Unilever ADR (UL)

Consumers these days are so lacking in confidence that all the therapy in the world probably couldn't help them. The housing market is in a tailspin, commodities are soaring and gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon. It is against this backdrop that Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) reported better-than-expected first quarter results.

Profit rose to $2.71 billion, or 82 cents per share, compared with $2.51 billion, or 74 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 9% to $20.46 billion from $18.69 billion last year. The Cincinnati-based company was expected to earn 81 cents on revenue of $21.44 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

"P&G delivered strong results in-line with long-term targets in a challenging economic and competitive environment with broad-based sales and share growth, earnings growth and overhead cost improvement," said Chief Executive AG Lafley in the earnings release.

Shares of the maker of Tide (my favorite detergent) and Pampers (our family's preferred diaper for my son) have slumped more than 10% this year under-performing rivals including Church & Dwight Co. (NYSE: CHD) and Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL). Uniliver Plc. (NYSE: UL) has fared slightly worse than P&G.

So far, the P&G consumer is holding steady. Products including Febreeze, Fusion, Gain and Head & Shoulders "delivered at least high-single digit volume growth." That's impressive, but the question on everyone's mind is can P&G keep it up. Will people start avoiding its products such as Tide for cheaper alternatives? One of the laws of the shopping universe is that somewhere in some store Tide is on sale. Same thing for, Cascade dish-washing liquid, Bounty paper towels and Crest tooth paste. They are all good products in my opinion but are they enough to maintain the loyalty of consumers looking to stretch every dollar of their budget?

So far, the answer is "yes." The company even boosted its 2008 guidance to $3.46 to $3.50, helped by strong sales overseas. That compares with prior guidance of $3.46 to $3.50.

Shares of P&G are up almost 48% over the past five years. Those aren't Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) numbers, but they aren't bad either. That's a credit to Lafley, a well-regarded CEO who is credited by Wall Street with refocusing the consumer products giant which was floundering at the time.

Tags: CHD, church dwight, ChurchDwight, consumer confidence, consumer spending, ConsumerConfidence, ConsumerSpending, crest toothpaste, CrestToothpaste, featured, inthenews, pampers, PG, procter and gamble, ProcterAndGamble, tide detergant, TideDetergant, UL