P&G results top views, but outlook falls short
Procter & Gamble Co posted a bigger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit on Friday, as cost cuts and price increases helped mitigate the impact of more expensive materials and some sluggish markets such as the United States.
P&G also gave its first forecasts for its new fiscal year, which show that the world's largest household products maker is likely to fall short of Wall Street's expectations this quarter.
Shares of P&G, whose lineup includes Gillette razors and Olay skin creams, were down 0.5 percent at $59.26 in premarket trading.
P&G earned $2.51 billion, or 84 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended in June, compared with $2.19 billion, or 71 cents per share, a year earlier.
Sales rose 10 percent to $20.86 billion.
Analysts on average expected the company to earn 82 cents per share on $20.63 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Organic sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange fluctuations, rose 5 percent. The volume of goods sold rose 3 percent.
For the first quarter ending in September, P&G forecast earnings per share of $1 to $1.04 from continuing operations, with organic sales up 2 percent to 4 percent.
For the fiscal year, P&G said it expected earnings per share of $4.17 to $4.33 from continuing operations, with organic sales up 3 percent to 6 percent.
Analysts on average were expecting the company to earn $1.14 this quarter and $4.26 this year.
(Reporting by Jessica Wohl; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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