Kimberly-Clark Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Kimberly-Clark EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.83
• Consensus EPS: $1.69
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.14
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.74

Kimberly-Clark Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $4.95 billion
• Expected Revenue: $5.06 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$106.65 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -3.50%

Kimberly-Clark Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 10/22/2024
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

Kimberly-Clark (NASDAQ:KMB) is a global manufacturer of personal care and consumer tissue products. The company develops and markets products designed to support personal hygiene, health and well-being in households, healthcare settings and workplaces.

Its portfolio includes well-known brands such as Huggies diapers and training pants, Kleenex facial tissues, Cottonelle toilet paper and wipes, Scott toilet paper and paper towels, Kotex feminine care products, and Depend and Poise incontinence care products. Kimberly-Clark also provides professional hygiene and workplace solutions through its Kimberly-Clark Professional business.

Founded in 1872, Kimberly-Clark is headquartered in Irving, Texas, and sells products in countries and territories around the world. Its operations serve consumers, retailers, healthcare providers and commercial customers across numerous international markets.

Kimberly-Clark Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Kimberly-Clark has completed its new organizational structure under the Power and Care strategy, positioning the company to deliver above its long-term growth algorithm and accelerate category leadership globally.
• The company faced discrete headwinds in Q3, including ~80 bps of net sales pressure from retail inventory reductions, private label business exits, weaker North American professional demand and pockets of deceleration in Asia and Latin America.
• Despite shipment volatility, consumer off-take in North America grew 3.2% year-over-year, outperforming the category and indicating underlying demand strength.
• Gross margins expanded to ~37% year-to-date, driven by $130 million of quarter productivity gains, proactive cost management and disciplined risk strategies, keeping the 40% target by 2030 on track.
• Kimberly-Clark plans to reduce private label mix from ~4% in 2023 to ~2% in 2025, creating a ~2% sales headwind next year as capacity shifts toward higher-margin branded innovation.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings. Welcome to the Kimberly-Clark's Third Quarter 2024 Question and Answer session. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Chris Jakubik, Vice President, Investor Relations. You may begin.

[Chris Jakubik, Head of Investor Relations at Kimberly-Clark]

Thank you and hello, everyone. This is Chris Jakubik, Head of Global Investor Relations at Kimberly-Clark, and welcome to our Q&A session for our Third Quarter 2024 Business Update. During our remarks today, we will make some forward-looking statements that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ due to risks and uncertainties, and these are discussed in our earnings release and our filings with the SEC. We will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures today. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and the supplemental materials posted at investor.kimberly-clark.com. Before we begin, I'm going to hand it to our Chairman and CEO, Mike Hsu, for a few quick opening comments.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I want to let you know our team has made great strides advancing our Powering Care strategy, bolstering our confidence to deliver above our Long-Term Growth Algorithm in 2024. To be global category leaders, we must lead growth in our categories. We're executing and making steady progress on our strategy to achieve this. We're driving consumption and growing our share across categories and markets, driven by our acceleration in innovation and enhanced commercial execution. Our productivity is fueling our investments in innovation to support our growth initiatives while delivering our bottom-line growth aspirations. We've achieved key milestones, and our transformation is on track with no disruptions. Notably, on October 1st, we successfully completed our new organizational structure to become a better, faster, and stronger organization. We're rapidly transforming Kimberly-Clark to thrive in an increasingly complex and competitive global environment.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

However, there are some discrete headwinds that are creating pressures on growth in the near term, and these include retail inventory reductions as our service levels improve, lower demand in private label businesses that we're exiting, and weaker-than-anticipated demand in North American professional channels, and some pockets of deceleration in Asia and Latin America. On the actions that we're taking as part of our transformation strategy, we are positioning us to navigate a dynamic consumer and retail environment, accelerate investments across the enterprise so that we can lead market growth and enhance the value of Kimberly-Clark for all of our stakeholders, so with that, I'd like to open it up for questions.

[Operator]

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, morning, Lauren.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hi, Lauren.

[Lauren Lieberman, Analyst at Barclays]

Hey, good morning. Hey, good morning. So I wanted to just touch first on retail inventory because you had talked about before the quarter, you know, some expectation, you were lapping some rebuild last year, but this has really been, I guess, a source of volatility. So I was curious if you could talk about kind of how you think about it, where service levels stand today, and also, you know, is there anything going on from a shelf space standpoint? Because, again, the disconnect between shipments and consumption has been such a source of volatility. Thanks.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, thanks, Lauren. Yeah, no disconnect from a shelving. I mean, we feel very good about our distribution growth and SKU count, you know, I think remains robust. And, you know, we have a great innovation pipeline that we're bringing in that will continue to support that. So I would say the retail inventory reductions, you know, they may be a little localized to us and do reflect, as you point out, Lauren, you know, the supply challenges we had last year. Just to remind you, we had a packaging supplier that was down for a couple of months last year that impacted most of our personal care brands in North America. So, and as we got back into supply, you know, I think we got fully back into supply third quarter of last year.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You could see in that chart that we had in our presentation kind of a spike in inventories in the third quarter last year, and we're cycling that this quarter. So I think that's really the, you know, the overall driver. So, you know, between restocking last year, reductions this year, and the hurricane, you know, we've seen about an 80 basis points overall headwind to global net sales year to date, primarily in North America. And as I said, that reflects, you know, I'd say, an improving service environment from our side and potentially, you know, impact from higher financing costs for inventory. You know, at the end of the quarter, I'd say retail inventories look consistent to us with historical levels. So, you know, hopefully, I think we should be mostly through it.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You know, but I would say, hey, you know, you are working through some, you know, some dynamism in the environment. And so we could still see some further reductions, you know, through the retailer fiscal year ends, which happen in Q3 of next year. So if that persists, you know, at similar levels in Q4, you know, we could be closer to a 3% organic growth for the full year.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, and a few things just to add on as we think about the inventory, the hurricane impacts, and what we had in Q3, Lauren. The quarter consumer offtake in North America is pretty strong, both in personal care, consumer tissue combined. It grew 3.2%, so ahead of the category. And the, you know, the disconnect, if you will, is really with the shipments, and that was impacted by a couple of factors.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

One, transitory factors, and that's the retail inventory changes, which, again, we lapped a build last year. We had a slight reduction in inventories again in Q3 of this year, then we had the impact of the hurricane at the end of the quarter with shipments out of the Southeast, and then lastly, some drops in Private Label volumes from both businesses we're exiting as well as some businesses we'll exit next year. The other bit to take into account is there was some underlying demand weakness in Professional and some international markets that I refer to, but the key is the shortfall in Q3, about two-thirds, is attributable to the transitory factors that I just referred to.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

If you think about the North America business in particular, the combination of these two led to about a 280 basis point headwind in North America Personal Care, whereas in Consumer Tissue, that was around 350 basis points in Consumer Tissue in North America. Overall, that's how you would be able to bridge the two numbers.

[Lauren Lieberman, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay, great. Thanks so much. And I was just curious, just in the Nielsen data, for what it's worth, we've seen, you know, a surge in some of your categories in and around port strikes. There's been questions around, you know, consumer takeaway ahead of the hurricane. So did you see that? Anything to just consider in terms of shipment dynamics and any, you know, things to think about for Q4? That would be a good answer.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, Lauren, I would say we're not really expecting any benefit from any stock-up behavior by consumers. You know, I'd say, yeah, we did see a little bit of it related to both the hurricane and potentially the port strike. You know, I'd say not meaningful at an enterprise level. You know, we would, you know, expect we'll kind of work through that in the quarter.

[Lauren Lieberman, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay, perfect. Thanks so much.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Thanks, Lauren.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question is from Nik Modi with RBC Capital Markets.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Morning, Nick.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, Nick.

[Nik Modi, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Morning.

[Nik Modi, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Morning, guys. Mike, maybe you can just talk about market shares, you know, in the release you know suggested things looked pretty good from that standpoint. I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that and just the competitive environment in general. Just kind of tagging on to that on innovation, I mean, some of the data we've seen, you know, out of Numerator on some of your innovation, like Skin Essentials, will suggest that there's a very high cannibalization rate. I just wanted to get your thoughts on kind of how you think about, you know, innovation and the role it's going to play. Is this really about market share gains, or is this about kind of expanding the value pool, as you've been suggesting, with some of the price tier opportunities that you have in the U.S. and other markets?

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay, I'll try to answer all of that, Nick, because you may have to steer me depending on how I answer, but I think the short answer is, hey, we're after growing our market shares overall, and we're after expanding the categories. So it's both of those. You know, I'd say I feel very good about the progress overall that we're making on market share and for the quarter. You know, I think overall, I think we're globally overall about flat, you know, on a weighted basis, and you know, on a cohort basis, you know, I'd say we're slightly more than half, which is an improvement versus this time year ago, pretty significant improvement.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Importantly, I think in the U.S., where we're making, you know, strong progress, and so what we have this discrepancy in consumption. Consumption is very solid, and we were up or even in seven of eight categories versus a year ago in the quarter and eight of eight sequentially. So I think we're making good progress on the market share front, and that's really driven by, you know, the strategy that we've been talking to you all about, Nick, which is, hey, we're investing to make better products in pioneering innovation. You know, we're investing to improve our advertising and driving strong commercial activation, and we're pulling all those levers together.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

So I think your question on innovation is, you know, in overall, you know, as we look to, you know, premiumize or drive trade up on our categories, obviously, our preferred path is to do that in a margin-accretive way, right? And so if you're driving premium innovation, that should be at a higher margin. You know, I'd say the overall goal is to delight the consumer in whatever way that we need to. And so, you know, in a lot of ways, like Skin Essentials, I feel great about the product that delivers really great benefits from a skincare perspective. That's kind of a new feature in the category, and I'm excited that consumers see that worth investing in, right? And so that's a great thing. But we also are focused on every tier on the Good, Better, Best spectrum, right?

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

And so we're going to be cascading our innovation throughout all of our tiers to make all of our products better. And so the short answer, which maybe frustrates some of my organization sometimes when they ask me, you know, well, do you want, you know, do you want us to trade up, or do you want the, you know, the value? And I say, yes, right? Because our job is to deliver across all tiers of that Good, Better, Best spectrum.

[Nik Modi, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay, thanks, Nick.

[Operator]

Your next question for today is from Anna Lizzul with Bank of America. Hi, good morning.

[Anna Lizzul, Analyst at Bank of America]

Morning.

[Operator]

Thank you so much for the question.

[Anna Lizzul, Analyst at Bank of America]

I was wondering if you could talk about the private label businesses. You did exit certain private label businesses, which impacted this quarter. So if you could give us more detail on where you are now in that process, maybe what we should be expecting moving forward, and just how this is overall helping you get to your longer-term gross margin goal of at least 40% by 2030? Thank you.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, yeah, thanks, Anna. Yeah, I think that, you know, the overall kind of, you know, underlying strategy behind, you know, the private label, you know, shift for us is, you know, we're really focused on, you know, proprietary science-based innovation in right-to-win spaces. And that's really behind our brands. So we really want to focus our capacity and technology investment in the brands to drive further differentiation. And so we've been moving out of some private label business for the past 18 months. You know, that has enabled us to step up our growth in our branded business, for example, Kleenex, which was up almost 500 basis points in share this quarter or last quarter. You know, that part of that is because we've been able to expand some of the capacity that we've had behind the brand. So I think that's been an important move.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

I think the last quarter in Q3, it's the first time that the exit combined with maybe some weaker private label sales at some customers was material enough for us to call out. And I think we noted that in our presentation. You know, I did highlight last quarter that in 2025, we'll cease production for a large club private label diaper business in the U.S. And that's going to create a headwind of about 2% for us next year. And so as a result, our private label mix will shrink from about 4% in 2023 to about 2% next year. And I expect that to decline further over time.

[Anna Lizzul, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay, thanks, Anna.

[Operator]

Your next question is from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Morning, Bonnie.

[Bonnie Herzog, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Good morning. I wanted to ask about your gross margin, you know, which it's expanded pretty meaningfully year to date and, you know, tracking ahead of pre-COVID levels, so just wondering how we should think about the sustainability of these margin levels, especially, you know, given the softer organic sales and, you know, probably the possibility that promos need to step up given, you know, pressures on the consumer and to limit downturning. I guess, you know, what's the right level of support you see from a benign input cost environment and, you know, considering also your ongoing productivity savings? Thank you.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, so a few things, Bonnie. Overall, we're pretty pleased with the trajectory of our gross margins, operating profit margins, and more importantly, gross margin dollars. I mean, that's our focus at the end of the day because that's what really funds our ability to invest in the business, invest behind the brands, and drive the sustainable innovation that we've been putting in the marketplace, which Mike was just talking about. For the year, what we've seen is we're right around an average of 37% gross margin, which is a pretty healthy gain. And we've been doing consistently for the last eight quarters or so gains on gross margin quarter after quarter, year over year. And we still expect, as we exit the year, to continue to have gains on gross margin on a year-over-year basis.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

A few things have played out in terms of what's driving the gross margin and why we still have strong confidence in our ability to get to our long-term stated goal of at least 40% gross margin or operating margin in the range of 18%-20% before the end of the decade. And what's playing out is the following. One is, first and foremost, our focus on driving meaningful innovation and focus on making it accretive to overall margins. Secondly is our shift to really managing our cost basket in a different way than what we did, say, three, four years ago. We're much more proactive around risk management strategies, how we look at the cost basket overall, and that allows us to have more visibility into what's coming our way so we can react appropriately.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

The third element, and it's been playing out very well this year, and it's part of our Powering Care strategy, is our transformation in the supply chain. We've delivered very strong productivity through the first three quarters of the year. We're, this past quarter, $130 million, and that's just in our gross productivity from manufacturing and supply chain, not including procurement. And we have a very strong pipeline going forward as part of our Powering Care strategy over the next few years as we really get underway to deliver that $3 billion. So we see that as very sustainable over time. A key point to take into account is margin progression is not linear. So there will be ups and downs quarter to quarter. The important thing is what's happening from a year-to-year basis and over time. So overall, very pleased where we stand right now.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

We obviously, from a cost basket, that was part of your question. Right now, we are still staring at about the same number that we had provided as an outlook at the beginning of the year. We've seen a bit of an uptick on costs in Q3, but that's exactly in line with what we had projected, and we expect Q4 to kind of have the same trajectory that we have seen in Q3, so no change at this stage versus what we're seeing.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, and Bonnie, maybe you touched on pricing or the promotion environment. I'll just say, you know, the overall, you know, we're really focused right now on volume and mixed-driven organic growth, and to do that, you know, I think we're also very focused on driving what we call PNOC, or Price Net of Commodity Discipline, right, and so, you know, and the magic of that is if we had that discipline on PNOC, then, you know, the productivity kind of drives the margin expansion on its own, but, you know, I would say overall, pricing to offset cost inflation is receding as we had planned throughout the year. You know, we really want to be, as I had just mentioned earlier, you know, better, you know, better value at every rung of the Good, Better, Best ladder.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Our focus on building the brands with innovation, you know, world-class advertising or storytelling in our vernacular, and then really, really strong commercial execution. That's kind of how we want to play it. I would say, you know, we do use promotion, but primarily as a trial driver, you know, with our pioneering innovation is how we think about it.

[Bonnie Herzog, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay, very helpful. Thanks for the color.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay, thanks, Bonnie.

[Operator]

The next question is from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, Chris.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, Chris.

[Chris Carey, Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Hey, everyone. So I just have a question about, you know, the new organizational structure and category growth. And I'm going to sneak one in on just the Q4 operating profit expectation. So regarding the, you know, the new organizational structure that you have in place as of, you know, October 1st, you also have an expectation for category growth to decelerate or at least to be the lower end of your long-term range. I think I saw that in the prepared remarks. And so how do these two things fit together, right? So, you know, the outlook for Q4 is, I think, similar to Q3, so maybe even a bit below that, you know, global category growth rate, and yet you have the new organization in place. You know, how long before this organization is really driving the outcomes that you're looking for?

[Chris Carey, Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

And specifically with an eye on 2025, where perhaps you'll have a little bit less pricing than you've had this year, and where those organizational changes are going to be an important part of, you know, driving organic sales growth, you know, next year. And I just wonder how you see that kind of top-line trajectory coming together. And if I could just sneak in on Q4, is the operating profit being needed in Q4? Is that really a discretionary decision behind investment? Should we be expecting some narrowing of gross margin, you know, performance? How would you characterize just the, you know, the relative differences between, you know, Q4 gross margin and just, you know, the sorts of things that you're being a bit more offensive about from an investment standpoint? So thanks so much.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay, Chris, you're up early. There's a lot of questions unpacked in there. So just steer us around if we forget to address something, but one, I will say I'm really pleased with the progress that our organization is making and implementing our Wire for Growth organization, and we've been operating that, as we said in October 1, officially. The truth behind that is we've been doing that on an informal basis earlier, so you know, I think it's gone off very, very well, and we're starting to see the benefits of kind of moving that structure. I'll hit on the categories. You know, I'd say, hey, the overall categories remain resilient. You know, underlying category growth, I think, Chris, remains very healthy. You know, consumer interest in better performing products remains healthy, especially in developed markets, but in developing and emerging markets as well.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You know, we're still very mindful about affordability and our need to strengthen our brand value propositions, so you know, I'd say overall, the categories are growing in dollars and units. You know, the underlying demand drivers remain healthy, and that includes penetration, which I think overall is stable, and you know, long-term for us remains a big opportunity. You know, we are seeing in some markets like lower births, as you're well aware, like in South Korea and China, but that has tempered and slowed down. The declines in the birth rate have slowed down. I'd say they actually have troughed, and so you know, our businesses are still performing well in that kind of environment. We have a lot of markets with categories that still remain at the very early stages of development across developing and emerging markets.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

And then, of course, this aging population is a strong tailwind for our adult care business across developed markets. And so I think penetration, I think it's a good story. Trade-up remains a big driver of the category, especially in developed markets, but even including developed and emerging markets. And we're still seeing the demand for premium products continue to grow, both in the U.S. and developed and emerging markets. You know, I think frequency is where we see typically some softness right now. Typically, you know, in a tougher economic environment, consumers in some markets, notably like in Latin America and Southeast Asia, tend to try to stretch out their money a little bit by using the products for a little bit longer duration. And so we are seeing a little bit of softness in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

And in addition, I think we mentioned in our presentation, we're seeing some traffic slowdown in our North American professional businesses. So as a result, I think our full-year weighted category growth is likely to be closer to 2% versus the 2%-3% range that we had highlighted previously. That said, I'd say we remain on algorithm. You know, of course, our goal is to lead category growth, which we will continue to do, we think. And then, you know, as we're flat to slightly up on share across our businesses globally this year.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

And let me unpack a little bit the top-line trajectory, and then we can get into the Q4 margins, Chris. So a few things as we look at the top-line trajectory. So absent the transitory factors, a key thing is, one, pricing. We are lapping the pricing actions that have been taken across category, all players, and ourselves. And as you can see from Q1 to Q3, what's happened is, and as we had projected at the beginning of the year, the impact of pricing and our overall organic growth has come down as expected. For the quarter, we were only 1% pricing. But if you go back to Q1, that was 4%. So it's been coming down, and we expect that to pretty much be the case as the year closes, also because pricing in hyperinflationary economies has been coming down.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

The other bit is that it's also having an incidence on the category growth. While EQ has remained healthy, etc., we're seeing that pricing, and you're seeing it in Nielsen data, is also coming down. And that's having an impact on what you see in overall category growth rates. So that's something we expect to have. But overall, the key element is, as we said at our investor day, this new phase is really about volume mixed-led growth. And that's what we expect for Q4. If you look at our outlook for Q4, the implication of what we're stating is that we do expect our top line for Q4 to be actually stronger than what we saw in Q3 once we normalize for the transitory factors that we saw. And again, there could be one-offs. We can't predict what we don't control.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

But based on what we know, we'd expect that to happen on the top line. In terms of the gross margin for Q4, a few things. One, we are stepping up investments behind our brands and our platforms. We saw that play out in Q3, as we had signaled in July. We stepped up advertising spend by 60 basis points. We expect to step up advertising and brand support by at least that amount in Q4. So the combination of the two should be north of 7%. So that's one element to be taken into account. Secondly, there are some discretionary costs that we expect to hit our P&L in Q4.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

And last but not least is we had a little, I mean, as we had indicated back in January, out of our bucket of input cost inflation, including currency, because of the timing of some of the pricing actions in hyperinflationary economies last year and how these costs would flow in, we would be more back half loaded. That played out in Q3. That'll play out in Q4, but overall, the key thing is we are making year-on-year strong progress on margins, and we expect to continue to do that over time.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

What did we miss, Chris?

[Chris Carey, Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

That was, I think that was as comprehensive as I could have hoped for. So thank you for entertaining all that. All right, good luck.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

All right, thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Your next question for today is from Kevin Grundy with BNP Paribas.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, Kevin.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hey, Kevin.

[Kevin Grundy, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Hey. Hey, morning, guys. Morning, Mike. Morning, Nelson. Question for you on, as a follow-up on Chris's question, a bit of a different angle, though, just as it pertains to visibility on results, sort of amidst, Mike, all this organizational change that you've kind of been pushing through in what is still a pretty dynamic environment. So I asked that in the context, you know, the quarter fell a bit short of your own internal expectations and the street. Some of these factors evolved throughout the quarter. There's something like the inventory builds was known, you know, when you were speaking with the street as recently as like early September. It didn't sound like some of these factors were really being amplified such that, you know, the street was kind of braced for the magnitude of it. So, you know, I can appreciate the volatility of the environment.

[Kevin Grundy, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Nelson, your point on what the organization has done, you know, around productivity and visibility there further down the P&L, certainly well taken. But my question for both of you really kind of speaks to the visibility you have as you're sort of contending with all this organizational change and why investors should not be concerned that this is really kind of a setback quarter in terms of the visibility that you're conveying and the guidance to the street. So thanks for all that.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, I think I'll start, Kevin, with, you know, one, I'm really, really pleased with the strong execution globally that we have from the team around the world. You know, overall, I'd say, you know, I'm really pleased that we are managing the controllable very, very well.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

I think what happened in the quarter, you know, I would say certainly I think you understand on the retail inventory. It's, you know, very certainly to be a transitory impact. You know, I do think part of it is, you know, we'll react to evolving market conditions, and so we've started to see a little softness in Southeast Asia and in Latin America. As we noted in our professional business, I think, you know, for us, you know, the opportunities, you know, we have good visibility on it. I think the organizational change has gone very, very well. We've been operating, I would say, in our words, internally, a soft reorg condition, you know, for the past six months, and so I think we have pretty good visibility operationally. Importantly, you know, management in the markets, you know, that are running the businesses has not changed significantly.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

So I think that should give us, you know, our investors comfort there. I think what we are, you know, calling out is that there is some softness in some markets that we're well aware of. You know, some of that is certainly category conditions are the things that we could be doing better from a product perspective or a marketing perspective, sure. And so I think the thing I like about our Wire for Growth is it's creating more visibility into the big markets that make the biggest impact. And that's, you know, international for personal care for us, North America, and some of our big consumer tissue markets. And so we're able, I would say, to diagnose what's going on and respond much quicker.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You know, some of the areas that we have opportunity to work on harder are Kotex in China, even though it was up slightly on share in the quarter, you know, it softened a little bit. You know, our Femcare business in Brazil, similarly, that tissue in South Korea was a little soft in the quarter. You know, one of the things that, you know, the reasons why we saw a little bit of a slowdown in Korea in the quarter was, you know, we have been growing multiple share points that offset some of the category conditions. And now that, you know, we're only growing, you know, a little bit of share or, you know, you know, let's say 100 basis points of share rather than 300, you know, that slowdown in category growth hits home a little bit harder.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

So I think we, you know, we have some opportunity there, and then lastly, you know, Huggies in parts of Latin America, you know, I think we do have some product improvement opportunities, which we're all over, and so, again, I feel good about the visibility, and I feel good about where we are in the reorganization, but Nelson, I don't know if you wanted to add.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, so just to add, Kevin, a few things. One, we will remain, and we've been instilling a lot of discipline in the business around our approach to volume, consumption, and how we manage on that end, so we will remain steadfast on the role that promotions play, and we're not going to be chasing volume. We're going to be chasing consumption, and that's what we're doing. We're pleased with the fact that in North America, consumption remains strong. Again, there's a disconnect between shipments and consumption, and there are elements there that we can't predict on a month-to-month basis because they just happen. Our focus and our discipline has also remained around how we manage bottom line, overall profitability of the business to be able to generate the fuel to invest back in the business. Our performance has been strong on that end.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

And again, we're getting better by the day as we execute. Our teams, you know, have been going through a lot of change over the last few months. And we're very proud of what they've accomplished and how they're looking at what we're going to be doing over the next few years as we carry out our Powering Care transformation. So overall, you know, we'll manage through the next few quarters. And there'll be market dynamics. But ultimately, our objective is to lead category growth in a profitable and sustainable manner. And that's what we're setting the organization to do.

[Kevin Grundy, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Very good.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

One more question.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Sorry.

[Operator]

Your final question is from Javier Escalante with Evercore ISI.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Morning, Javier.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Hi.

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Hi. Hello, guys. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to revisit some of the items discussed in a way that I think that it may be simpler because there is a lot of moving pieces. So say kind of like external issues versus internal factors. So the external one, the bigger one is this inventory destocking is not just you. You know, we have been talking about this with some of your peers. If you can talk about what's driving it, is it just mechanics of COVID? Is it a shift to e-commerce that they are using the stores differently? And if you can basically say, I think that I heard that it was 80 basis points on a year-to-date basis. If you can just simply tell us what was the impact on Q3.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah.

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

So that's the externality. Kind of a way, but I would like to go more into the internal piece, which to me is more interesting. So if you can address that and then give me a minute for the internal question.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Javier, let me reconcile the numbers for you just to give the sense of what's that 80 basis point on Q3. And you can get to that and see. But as you state, I mean, there are externalities, inventory movements. We had a build last year, especially particularly in Q3 as our supply chain normalized in the U.S. And then we had a bit of more destock in Q3 following what had happened in Q1 and Q2 of this year. We also had the hurricane impact at the very end of the quarter, the last three, four days of shipments. And then the other element was the private label shipments. I mean, we exited some contracts. And then on top of that, we had softer demand in other private label that materialized at the end of September.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Those three elements that we've called, that I've referred to as transitory factors, added to slightly north of one point of growth in the quarter. So roughly 1.3 points if you want me to round it to be exact. That's what that drove for the enterprise overall in growth. That's the 80 basis points, give or take, that Mike referred to for the year if you add all that.

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Thank you. Yeah. So basically, the real question is the following, right? So you basically, you are doing a lot. This is a highly decentralized company, but at the same time, the categories are roughly the same. So basically, you are, you know, moving away from private label. So if you can tell us how you are in that process again? So what was your, at the beginning of the year, what percentage of global sales were in private label? Where they are now? What is the plan for next year? Because there is the impending exit of a private label business that is two points coming into 2025. So if you can explain that, you know, as an item alone?

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

So then if you, there is the implementation of SAPS/4HANA, to what extent that had an impact or gave you more visibility so you can guide better going into next year. And there is another item that came out, a news item in terms of you guys being evaluating strategic options for the international tissue and professional businesses, which in my math is about seven% of the profit. So you seem to be doing a lot very at the same time. So tell us how the organization is responding. You know, do you have the system to manage this so you can control the volatility going forward? Thank you.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Yeah, I think I'll start maybe. And, you know, as I said, I think we've been very pleased with the organization's response to the reorganization. And, you know, Javier, as I mentioned, we put the switch on the new operating model or new operating structure October 1. But the reality is we had been running in a kind of a soft mode for several months leading up to it. And the reality is what's happening in each of the markets, you know, we haven't changed management significantly in any of the local markets that kind of deliver the P&L. And so, you know, our expectation would there be little disruption. And in my mind, there hasn't been very much disruption at all. So again, I think we feel very good about how the organization is proceeding. And our visibility into kind of looking at the business remains very, very good.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

I'd say on the Private Label, again, I think I'd mentioned earlier, you know, this year it will be about 4% of our overall sales of the company. Next year after the exit, it will be about 2% Private Label. And then our plans would be, you know, probably work our way down from there. So, you know, so that's that part. I forgot what else did you want to ask for, huh?

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

You had a question on S/4HANA, Javier?

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Go ahead. Actually, the question is more about, you know, whether S/4HANA will give you the capacity to basically better foresee this volatility because there is this news item about you guys looking for strategic options for, I don't know what that is, but international tissue and Professional business, which is about 7% of profit.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

First, though, Javier, since you opened the door, my DTS, my Digital Technology Services organization, I will be remiss if I don't compliment them, but we did flip the switch on our North American S/4HANA implementation at the end of July, actually the weekend before the earnings call last quarter, and you know, contrary to what, you know, most experiences are, nobody noticed other than it was easier to run, and so I think our organization had done a great job. I think actually the vendor who provides the software wants to meet with us to see how did we pull that off without any slippage. So I think we've done a very good job there, and so, you know, from that perspective, you know, I think, again, the organization, I think, continues to perform extremely, extremely well.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You know, with regard to your questions on international family care and professional, you know, I'd say, you know, we're taking important steps to make that a more robust and predictable contributor to growth and returns for us, and you know, for me, obviously, as a matter of practice, I'm not going to comment on news articles or rumors, and I'll let you know when I think there's something that you need to know, but we like the categories that we're in. We believe we can add a lot more value, you know, to our categories, our consumers, and our customers. That said, Javier, I think you'll also recognize that, you know, in places where we don't feel like we have a right to win in the long term, we'll look to optimize our participation in those assets.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

You know, and, you know, the example that I think you and I have discussed is in Brazil where we saw some structural factors that made it difficult for us to compete on the consumer tissue side of the business due to some, I would say, some government incentives that we couldn't access that made the category more difficult to compete in. You know, we made a different decision that I think was a very good one for the company. And so, you know, I think we'll continue to make those tough decisions. But, you know, again, I think we'll let you know if there's anything to think about regarding the tissue business.

[Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Thank you very much, guys.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Okay.

[Nelson Urdaneta, CFO at Kimberly-Clark]

Thank you, Javier.

[Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO at Kimberly-Clark]

Thank you.

[Chris Jakubik, Head of Investor Relations at Kimberly-Clark]

Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. For anybody who has follow-up questions, you know, Investor Relations will be around to take your calls. Thanks very much and have a great day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Chris Jakubik, Head of Investor Relations
• Michael Hsu, Chairman and CEO
• Nelson Urdaneta, CFO

Analysts

• Lauren Lieberman, Analyst at Barclays
• Nik Modi, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Anna Lizzul, Analyst at Bank of America
• Bonnie Herzog, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Chris Carey, Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
• Kevin Grundy, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Javier Escalante, Analyst at Evercore ISI