Procter & Gamble Company (The)

of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections. As required by Regulation G, Procter & Gamble needs to make you aware that during the discussion, the company will make a number of references to non-GAAP and other financial measures. Procter & Gamble believes these measures provide investors with useful perspective on underlying business trends and has posted on its investor relations website, www.pginvestor.com, a full reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. Now I will turn the call over to P&G's Chief Financial Officer, Andre Scholten.

Good morning. Joining me on the call today are John Moeller, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Chevalier, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. I'll start with an overview of second quarter results. John will add perspective on our results and strategy, and we'll close with guidance for fiscal 25 and then take your questions. Second quarter results were largely in line with our going-in expectations despite a high degree of volatility within the quarter. Ultimately, acceleration in organic sales growth, EPS growth, strong cash return to share owners. Organic sales for the quarter grew 3%. Volume contributed two points to organic sales growth. Mix added one point, and pricing was roughly in line with prior year. The top-line results were better than anticipated in early December. Our team was able to fully overcome the two-week outage of our global transportation management system provider, and support strong late December customer orders ahead of early January merchandising events. Growth was broad-based across categories, with 9 of 10 product categories growing organic sales for the quarter. Family care was up double digits. Home care and skin and personal care were up mid-singles. Personal health care, hair care, oral care, feminine care, fabric care, and grooming grew low single digits. Baby care was down low singles. Organic sales in focus markets grew 4 percent, and enterprise markets were in line with prior year. Organic sales in North America grew 4 percent, driven by four points of volume growth. Over the last six quarters, North America has grown organic sales 7 percent, 5, 3, 4, 4, and now again 4 percent, on volume growth of 3 to 4 percent each quarter. The region delivered broad-based market share growth this quarter with 8 of 10 categories holding or growing volume share, and 8 of 10 categories holding or growing value share. Europe-focused markets' organic sales were up 4%, driven by 4 points of volume growth. Over the last six quarters, Europe-focused markets have grown organic sales on average 6%, on volume growth of 3%. Latin America and European enterprise markets each grew low single digits, and the Asia, Middle East, and Africa region declined low singles. Greater China organic sales declined 3%. While down versus prior year, this is a solid step forward in our second largest market from a 15% decline last quarter. Notably, SK2 in Greater China grew 5%, with strong growth during the 11-11 key consumption period and modest growth in travel retail. Underlying market conditions remain soft, and we are trending back toward growth in Greater China. Global aggregate value share was in line with prior year, with 28 of our top 50 category country combinations holding or growing share for the quarter. On the bottom line, core earnings per share were $1.88, up 2% versus prior year. On a currency neutral basis, core EPS increased 3%. The quarter included roughly $0.02 per share of incremental costs to manage through the transportation services disruption, almost entirely in cost of goods sold. Core growth margin was down 30 basis points and core operating margin declined 80 basis points. Currency neutral core operating margin decreased 50 basis points. The quarter included strong productivity improvement of 260 basis points. Adjusted free cash flow productivity was 84%. We returned over $4.9 billion of cash to shareholders this quarter, $2.4 billion in dividends, and $2.5 billion in share repurchases. To summarize results, accelerating organic sales growth, solid core EPS growth and cash return to share owners, keeping us on track to deliver within our fiscal year guidance ranges. Overall good performance in what continues to be a challenging economic and geopolitical environment. Over to John.

Thanks, Andre. Our team continues to execute our strategy with excellence, enabling strong results over the past six plus years. Pre-COVID, during COVID, through historic inflationary and pricing cycle, and through geopolitical tensions. They've now delivered 26 consecutive quarters of 2% or better organic sales growth, averaging 5.5% organic sales growth over those 6.5 years. We've now delivered 8.5 fiscal years of 2% or better core earnings per share growth, averaging nearly 8% over that period. This is the type of long-term, sorry, turning my page here, balanced top and bottom line growth we strive to deliver. Solid, consistent growth over time. As we expected heading into the fiscal year, first half results were below the guidance ranges we set for the full year. And while recent consumer trends and FX rates make the balance of the year more challenging, we continue to expect stronger results in the second half. Andre will discuss this more in the guidance update. We remain committed to the integrated strategy that has enabled our strong results and that is the foundation for balanced growth and value creation. We highlighted many of the reasons we're confident in the strategy at our investor day in November. If you weren't able to attend, I encourage you to listen to the replay on our IR website. To recap, we remain very disciplined in our portfolio choices. including some moves over the past year to strengthen our ability to generate US dollar-based returns. We're doubling down on superiority across all five vectors. No single vector of superiority can carry the day itself. It's all five together. The innovation plans to create and extend superiority across the business are very strong, and we continue to leverage recent innovations by driving more trial and household penetration. A few examples. Charmin Smooth Tear, with its patented scalloped edge, the biggest innovation in toilet paper in 100 years, continues to drive Charmin volume and value share growth in the US. We were first to launch the whole body deodorant sprays, now across the Old Spice, Secret, and Native brands. And we continue to drive trial in the growing segment, in this growing segment of the category. P&G U.S. deodorant volume and value share are each up nearly a point over the last year. Dawn Power Wash continues to drive market share up more than a point in the U.S. market after nearly three years in the market. Swiffer Power Mop has become the largest innovation in Swiffer's history, contributing to 40% growth of the brand portfolio and driving a remarkable 35% growth in the category. We've launched our most advanced power toothbrush, Oral-B IO10, early last year. We followed up with IO2, the first IO designed to help consumers trade up from a manual toothbrush to a power brush. Early results in the U.S. are very encouraging, and we're expanding IO2 across major markets over the next several months. We just launched our best ever whitening toothpaste, Crest 3D White Deep Staining Remover. The new formula works in just one day to dissolve the bonds that lock stains to your teeth and better prevent stains from occurring. The early trial period for deep stain remover is off to a great start. We're expanding Xevo, our insect killing sprays, mosquito and tick repellents, and insect traps with worry-free ingredients inspired by plants' natural defenses against bugs. We're building distribution and trial and receiving very strong consumer ratings and reviews. Tide OxyBoost Power Pods have just launched online with a great response from retailers and customers. OxyBoost includes two times the OxyPower to provide Tide's most powerful clean. OxyBoost Power Pods will be available in stores soon, and we'll be following up quickly with additional innovations in laundry detergents and fabric enhancers. Finally, Tide Evo, our new laundry detergent developed on our breakthrough functional fibers platform, continues to exceed expectations in our Colorado test market, surpassing our year one performance goals in just the first 12 weeks after launch. We're progressing through the last phase of supply chain readiness, and we'll be assessing our expansion plans in the coming months. There are many more examples we could share considering the next six months of innovations across Tide, Gain, Downey, Febreze, Dawn, Cascade, Mr. Clean, Pampers, Loves, Tampax, Always, Always Discreet, Bounty, Old Spice, Crest, Gillette, and Venus brands. And that's just in the U.S. I hope you can see this is one reason we're confident in our prospects going forward. We're improving productivity in all areas of our operations to fuel investments in superiority, mitigate cost and currency headwinds, and drive margin expansion. We've extended our visibility to productivity improvement with each business unit building three-year cost savings master plans, mirroring what we've done for years in our innovation program. We're driving constructive disruption of ourselves and our industry, a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends, technologies, and capabilities that will shape the future of our industry and extend our competitive advantage. We've designed to continue to refine and strengthen P&G's organization structure so that it enables P&G people to be fully empowered, agile, and accountable, focused on business outcomes to deliver the greatest value creation. We call this an integrated strategy for a reason. Each part of the strategy needs to be delivered. It's not a menu to pick and choose from. Each element is incredibly important. The real advantage comes from being able to do all of these things at the same time. The strategy is inherently dynamic. It adapts to the changing needs of consumers, customers, and society. It demands that we not sit still. We continue to believe our best path forward is to double down on this integrated strategy, operating with a focus on driving market growth, creating business, versus taking business to deliver balanced top and bottom line growth and value creation. With that, I'll hand it back to Andre to discuss guidance. Thank you, John.