Haleon posted an unexpected drop in third-quarter revenue, hurt by a weak demand for its painkiller in Australia and the Middle East.
The consumer healthcare company, spun off from British drugmaker GSK in 2022, said its Panadol painkiller reported weaker sales in Middle East & Africa and Australia, delivering only mid-single digit percentage growth.
While consumer healthcare companies and their daily-use essentials are usually the last to see an impact to demand from a cost-of-living crisis, firms largely mitigate the damage to profits and margins by passing them on to shoppers via price hikes.
Haleon reported a revenue of £2.78 billion (€3.32 billion) for the three months ended 30 September, missing expectations of £2.83 billion (€3.38 billion), according to a company-compiled consensus.
However, the British consumer healthcare group said organic revenue grew 6.1% during the quarter, compared with a 5% growth in the same quarter last year.
'Strong' Q3 Trading
Brian McNamara, chief executive officer, said, “Third quarter trading was strong with momentum across the business underpinned by the strength of our brand portfolio driving market share gains. Oral Health was again a particular highlight, with organic revenue up high-single digit as Sensodyne and parodontax continued to drive growth.
“All three regions delivered volume/mix growth during the quarter, with North America showing the improvement we expected and China up strongly.”
McNamara added, “We also made significant progress delivering on our capital allocation priorities - completing the disposal of our NRT business outside the US, agreeing to increase our stake in our China joint venture, and completing our share buyback allocation for 2024.
“Having achieved organic revenue and organic profit growth of 4.4% and 9.7% respectively year-to-date, we are well on track to deliver our full-year 2024 guidance.”
News by Reuters, additional reporting by ESM.
