Clorox Company (The)

on your touchtone pad at any time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Ms. Lisa Byrne, Vice President of Investor Relations for the Clarks Company. Ms. Byrne, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Paul. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today are Linda Rendell, our Chair and CEO, and Luc Belay, our CFO. I hope everyone has had a chance to read our earnings release and prepared remarks, both of which are on our website. In just a moment, Linda will share a few opening comments, and then we'll take your questions. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements, including about our fiscal year 2025 outlook. These statements are based on management's current expectation, but may differ from actual results or outcome. In addition, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the forward-looking statement section which identifies various factors that could affect such forward-looking statements, which has been filed with the SEC. In addition, please refer to the non-GAAP financial information section in our earnings release and the supplemental financial schedules in the investor relations section of our website for reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Now, I'll turn it over to Linda.

Thank you for joining us today. I'd like to welcome Luke to his first call as CFO. Looking back to the start of the fiscal year, we expected a tougher consumer environment with increased competition and slower category growth. For the first half of the year and the first half of the third quarter, we saw just that. During the second half of the third quarter, however, U.S. consumer sentiment weakened substantially, and macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties drove changes in shopping behaviors, resulting in temporary category impact and lower than expected sales. Despite these headwinds, our fundamentals remain strong. We held overall market shares and delivered our 10th consecutive quarter of gross margin expansion, which enables us to keep reinvesting in our brands, our innovation pipeline, and in the transformation of our business. As we look ahead, we anticipate consumers and retailers will remain under pressure, which is reflected in our updated outlook. That said, we are confident in our portfolio of trusted brands and the essential role they play in consumers' daily lives. Our proven resilience and execution equip us to navigate the uncertainties ahead. For this year, that means we continue to expect to deliver organic sales growth and another year of strong earnings growth while continuing to progress our long-term strategy. With that, Luke and I will take your questions.