Hello, everyone, and welcome to our three-month sales conference call and webcast. For those of you whom I haven't met, I'm Stephan Kinzer, the Head of Investor Relations. I will now present Nestlé's three-month sales results, followed by Q&A. On that topic, if you want to ask a question later in the Q&A, please press star plus one on your telephone keypad to be put into the queue. If you change your mind, please press star plus two. Now let's go. I will take the safe harbor statement as read and move straight into the numbers. Our three-month sales growth was in line with expectations and driven by both real internal growth and pricing. We achieved sales of CHF 20.9 billion. That is up 0.5% versus the same period last year. Organic growth was 4.4%. Real internal growth was 1.9%.
We delivered good results in Zone EMENA, Nestlé Waters, and the other businesses. We are continuing to make progress in restoring momentum to Zone AOA and North America. We confirm our full-year outlook. We aim to achieve organic growth of around 5% with improvements in margins, underlying earnings per share in constant currencies and capital efficiency. Now let's see the details. Here we summarize the performance in our three geographies. This includes our zone-managed sales, as well as our globally managed businesses. As you know, on January 1st, we reorganized our zones, taking the Maghreb, the Northeast Africa region, Middle East region, Turkey, and Israel into zone Europe to form Zone EMENA. Organic growth was 5.6% in the Zone Americas, 4.5% in Zone EMENA, and 2.2% in Zone AOA. Real internal growth was 2% in the Zone Americas, 3.4% in Zone EMENA, and -0.1% in Zone AOA.
While we continue to have broad-based organic growth in all geographies, our RIG reflects particular challenges in certain markets. I will explain in more detail in the coming slides as we discuss the zones and globally managed businesses. Now, let's look at the split of our sales from another perspective. The developed markets contributed 55% of the group sales and emerging markets 45%. Our organic growth in the developed markets was 2.5% in the first three months of the year. This acceleration reflects our ability to sustain growth in mature markets despite the weak macroeconomic environment. We have done this through innovation, premiumization, and making choices to optimize our portfolio. The emerging markets, on the other hand, show a deceleration in organic growth to 6.7%. This reflects the challenges in a number of markets.
We continue to feel the slowdown in China, and the first three months were also affected by Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, and certain countries in the Middle East. Now, let's look in more detail at our zones and globally managed businesses. Starting with Zone Americas. We delivered sales of CHF 5.8 billion, organic growth of 3.7%, and real internal growth of -0.2%. Here our growth was mainly impacted by the subdued U.S. business as expected, and also by a slowdown in Brazil. For the U.S. market overall, low wage growth is affecting consumer sentiment. Meanwhile, the slow start we have had this year is no surprise. Specifically, in the U.S. frozen business, we have seen modest improvement recently. While Lean Cuisine and Pizza remain challenged, our Stouffer's line showed some positive signs.
At our last earnings call, we gave details on the actions we would take to relaunch frozen, and we explained this would be an ongoing process. We have taken steps to reposition the brands, addressing all elements of the marketing mix to enhance their relevance to consumers. I look forward to sharing our progress with you in future updates. Looking at the rest of North American business, we continue to see good growth in our Creamers category. Coffee-mate maintained its positive momentum, supported by the launch of a portable version, Coffee-mate 2Go. Natural Bliss, our dairy-based range made with natural ingredients, had another good year. In ice cream, Häagen-Dazs helped deliver for super premium, and snacks contributed. Baking also did well, driven by innovations in Toll House Morsels and frozen cookie dough. PetCare contributed positively despite tough comparisons.
Our innovations and line extensions in Purina ONE and Tidy Cats litter did well. In the natural segment, our Beyond line also continues to be a growth driver. Moving on to Latin America. While there was good organic growth, the worsening macroeconomic environment affected the zone's overall performance. Brazil had a slow start to the year, given the slowing economy and low consumer sentiment. Ambient Dairy had a challenging first three months. Positive highlights were confectionery, with strong performances from KitKat and from biscuits with Nesfit. Mexico, our other key market in Latin America, did well, with good broad-based performance in most categories. Nescafé soluble coffee performed very well. Coffee-mate had very strong growth, and confectionery did well, contributing to the market's overall momentum. The divestiture of Chilled Dairy in 2014 had a positive effect, as will have the very recent divestiture of ice cream.
Other markets that did well in Latin America were Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. Nestlé Purina PetCare Latin America continued with strong broad-based growth, supported by all markets of the region. Finally, Nescafé Dolce Gusto continues with very good growth across Latin America. Next is Zone EMENA, which as mentioned earlier, includes Europe plus now the Middle East, Turkey, Israel, and North Africa. The sales were CHF 3.9 billion, and growth was solid, both organically at 5.3% and in terms of RIG at 3.9%. Pricing was taken both in response to currency depreciation as well as in coffee and confectionery in many markets in Europe. Consumer sentiment in the zone appears to be modestly improving.
I want to emphasize that all regions contributed positively to the zone's growth: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East and North Africa. Across Europe, PetCare was a growth driver with Felix, Purina ONE, and Gourmet. Nescafé Dolce Gusto grew well across the zone and continues to drive a positive momentum in many of the key markets. Frozen pizza sustained its strong contribution, supported by successful innovations in our strong brands, Buitoni and Wagner. Ambient culinary and confectionery were also good, both helped by the early Easter. In general, most of our Western European markets did well. Switzerland and Greece were more challenged. The U.K. showed improvement, making a positive contribution to the zone's growth. In Central and Eastern Europe, we saw good performances. In Russia, we were able to deliver good growth despite a turbulent economic environment. We adapted our prices while maintaining share.
Ukraine also did well despite the challenges there and also delivered good real internal growth. Finally, in the Middle East and North Africa, there was solid growth across the region, often in challenging environments. Coffee, culinary, and confections did well. Sales in Turkey, driven by soluble coffee, are progressing strongly when pricing has been taken due to inflationary pressures. The challenging environments in Iraq and Yemen were compensated by the good overall growth in the Middle East. Now turning to AoA. You will recall from the full-year announcement that RIG in AoA for the last three months of 2014 was negative. The start of 2015 was broadly similar, in line with our expectations. The main challenges were in China and also sub-Saharan Africa. In China, we continue to be affected by Yinlu's low performance. Wafers and confectionery and coffee also remain challenged.
Hsu Fu Chi showed improvement helped by the comparisons from last year. Ready-to-drink coffee achieved strong growth. We did say that the actions taken to rebuild the business in China will take time. We are on track, renovating the portfolio, improving our communication, and distribution. As one example, Yinlu recently launched a premium protein drink, Chun, which brings value to the consumers through its focus on nutrition. Sub-Saharan Africa was the other region where we had particular challenge, mainly in the oil-dependent economies of Nigeria and Angola. There were severe economic and political disturbances, including elections, falling oil prices, and instability in the north of Nigeria, all contributing to a slowdown. In the other AoA markets, our premium businesses grew well. Our coffee brands were highlights with Nescafé Dolce Gusto and Nescafé Gold performing well across the zone.
The Malaysian market benefited from its two recent launches, KitKat Rubies and Nescafé 3-in-1 Blend & Brew. Bear Brand milks were a highlight in Indonesia, and premium noodles in South Asia and Malaysia, Singapore also did well. In our developed markets, Japan continued with solid growth. This is an excellent example for how value creation through innovation and premiumization drives dynamic growth even in mature markets. KitKat sustained the good momentum we saw in the prior year, and ready-to-drink coffees are also doing well. This is a good performance in spite of difficult comparisons and a sales tax increase implemented in April of last year. Finally, our business in Oceania stabilized, helped by good performance in confectionery. This market continues to feel the pressure of a very difficult trade environment. Moving on now to Nestlé Waters gives me a cue.
Moving on now to our globally managed businesses, starting with Nestlé Waters. The growth for the quarter was broad-based, helped by continued investment in our brands and positive category momentum. Sales were CHF 1.7 billion with organic growth of 7.3% and RIG of 7.5%. All three geographies contributed to the business' very good performance. In the developed markets, we had mid-single digit growth in both North America and Western Europe despite strong competition. The premium international brands, Perrier and S.Pellegrino, continued their strong growth momentum in North America and France, and the local U.K. brand, Buxton, also did well. In the emerging markets, we achieved double-digit growth led by our local brands, Erikli in Turkey, Al Manhal in the Middle East, and Yunnan Shan Quan in China. I hope I pronounced that right.
Nestlé Pure Life continued to be a growth engine with strong acceleration, particularly in North America, U.K., Brazil, and certain AoA markets. Looking now at Nestlé Nutrition, with 4.3% organic growth and 1.3% RIG. Nestlé Nutrition had a slow start into 2015 with tough comparisons, mainly in the more volatile markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. Why has infant nutrition continued to deliver solid growth in infant formula and growing up milks driven by premium brands Illuma and S-26? In China, our geographic expansion into smaller cities is on track, helping us achieve better distribution and higher brand awareness. The developed markets started the year with a positive contribution, helped by Western Europe and the impact from portfolio rationalization. In the U.S., pouches and cereals were a highlight. Sales continued to be affected by the decision to participate only in selective WIC contracts in the United States.
Emerging markets remain the source of growth, but at a slower rate compared to prior years, again, due to difficult comparisons. We saw good performances in Asia and Mexico in particular. As well as the continued positive momentum for infant cereals in the U.S., there was also strong performance in Southeast Asia. Finally, our organic fruit puree pouch line was a highlight for the meals and drinks category. Now, let me move to our other businesses, which includes Nestlé Professional, Nespresso, Nestlé Health Science, and Nestlé Skin Health. Together, these businesses achieved CHF 3.3 billion, organic growth of 8.1%, and real internal growth of 5.9%. Nestlé Professional had a solid start to the year. The growth was balanced across both the food and beverage businesses. Developed markets remained challenged due to difficult trading environments.
Nestlé Professional's growth was driven by the emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Also, you will have seen our announcement on Davigel earlier this week. Nespresso continued to grow well in a competitive environment. We are constantly leveraging our strengths by innovating our coffee offering, our machines, and our services, helping to maintain our premium position in this category. For example, we introduced three decaffeinated Grands Crus with the same aroma profile as the three of the most preferred coffees of the permanent range. We also continued to increase our global presence through international expansion with seven new boutiques opened so far in 2015. Nestlé Health Science saw good sales growth in all three of its business areas: consumer care, medical nutrition, and novel therapeutic nutrition. Europe and AoA performed well.
Highlights we spoke about during our full-year conference, such as Vitaflo, BOOST, and Meritene, continued to drive growth. Nestlé Skin Health grew well throughout all businesses, with strong performance in the Americas and Asia. Growth in the prescription business was helped by the U.S. launch of Soolantra, a novel topical treatment for rosacea. The self-medication business benefited from continued geographic expansion in the U.S. launch of Benzac for the treatment of acne. The U.S. medical aesthetic business acquired last year contributed strongly and benefited from the launch of Restylane Silk. This slide now highlights the performance across our product categories. Starting with powdered and liquid beverages, the slowdown in RIG was driven by several factors. Cocoa beverages started the year with tough comparisons, with sub-Saharan Africa particularly affected.
Our position as market leader in soluble coffee in many countries means we are often the first movers in terms of pricing. In the first three months of this year, the pricing taken impacted our RIG in some markets. We covered waters in the previous slide. Milk products and ice cream, they faced further challenges versus last year. The key reasons are the drivers I mentioned during my review of the zones. Yinlu remained slow in China, dairy in Brazil had a difficult start to the slowing environment, and the Middle East was affected by Iraq and Yemen. Ice cream had a slow start. However, please keep in mind that January through March is not necessarily indicative for ice cream's performance in a year. Nutrition and health science continued to benefit from the good performance of Nestlé Health Science and Nestlé Skin Health.
Looking at prepared dishes and cooking aids, the improvement from prior year came from slightly better performance in Stouffer's and good performance from pizza in Europe. We also saw a strong start for ambient culinary sales in Maggi, and chilled showed improvement in France and U.S. The growth in confectionery reflects both the Easter campaign in Europe and pricing taken in Latin America and Eastern Europe in response to inflation. RIG has been helped by strong KitKat performance and improvements in Süßes Zuhause against easier comparisons. The successful launch of Les Recettes de l'Atelier, which we spoke about during the last call, continues with its expansion into new markets. Pet care shows good organic growth. However, RIG was affected by the factors we mentioned. That would wrap up our business review. Summary.
In summary, I would describe organic growth of 4.4% for the first three months to be a solid start to 2015. The growth is broad-based, coming from both emerging and developed markets, despite some very different dynamics in the operating environment. The economic outlook in many of our markets remains challenging, but we will continue to focus on driving performance by doing the right things for the long term. We continue our full-year outlook. That is, we aim to achieve organic growth of around 5% with improvements in margins, underlying earnings per share in constant currencies, and capital efficiency. That brings us to the end of the presentation. We will now open the lines for Q&A. As said at the beginning, to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you want to withdraw your question, please press star two.
Please limit yourself to no more than two questions. Let's take the first question. The first question is from Jon Cox at Kepler. Please go ahead, Jon.
Good morning, Stephan. I have a couple of questions for you. The first one is really on that frozen category in North America. It seems to me that Stouffer's is sort of turning around and doing a bit better. I wonder if you could just give us a bit more color. You mentioned Lean Cuisine, but also maybe you could talk a little bit about Hot Pockets, DiGiorno, and then the pizza business as well, and how things are going in terms of the relaunch there. That's the first question. Second question, just on confectionery, just right at the tail end there, you talked about the expansion of the premium chocolate brand into other markets. Can you just give us some details there, which markets you're moving into? Thank you.
Okay. First on U.S. frozen. Look, there are complex dynamics in the U.S. food and business consumption. Also, as illustrated yesterday by our chairman at the AGM. We said before, it's not an overnight fix. We are committed to fix the business. We believe frozen remains relevant to the consumer. Just a reminder, frozen is a sizable category, and it's important for us as well as for the retailers with the assets that have been invested into that category. We have leading positions, and as we said before, we're looking at all elements of the marketing mix. We're making our product more relevant to the consumer. We're changing the product, the ingredients, we're changing the packets, we're changing the communication. We're really addressing all elements of the marketing mix. Again, I want to reiterate, it's a process throughout the year.
At the moment, it's really too early to say that the new measures we've been taking have had a large effect already now in the first quarter. We're launching, for example, for Lean Cuisine, that the products are hitting the shelves as we're speaking. We're going to see the effect of that probably towards the middle of the year and especially in the second half. We have seen a slight easing in Stouffer's, as I said. I wouldn't read too much into it at this point in time. I would like to reiterate that the improvements will really be seen in the second half. For premium confectioneries, your second question, we have a premium business already in Switzerland with Cailler. That's really in the countries of Switzerland, France, and we introduced it this year also in Spain.
The next question is from Céline Pannuti from J.P. Morgan. Good morning, Céline. Go ahead, please.
All right. Good morning. My first question will be on China. I don't know whether you can share with us numbers on the country, but otherwise, can you say sequentially whether China was better or worse versus Q4? I would say China in the zone as well as the China total business, if you could comment on that. I think you had said that the destocking would still have an impact in Q1. Is that the case, and can we expect that that would be behind us then from Q2 onwards? That would be my first question. My second question is on the milks performance, which you highlighted had some impact from Brazil, and I think Middle East. Is it something that we should continue to see as subdued throughout the year, or was there a specific impact of comp? Thank you for that.
All right. Let me start with China. China is a big market with many parts. China as a market is still slightly positive. In the geography to your question, is slightly positive. The challenge categories highlighted in the full-year conference call were still difficult. They were not worse. We expect gradual recovery. Like 八宝粥 improved, due to easy comps as well. Yinlu, Crisp Shark Wafer, and coffee are still slow. Everything we said at the full-year earnings call is still very relevant here. On the other hand, RTD had a very strong growth. In the geography among the globally managed businesses, we had good growth in infant, we had an acceleration in water, Nestlé Health Science. We had good growth in Nestlé Skin Health. The actions were taken to reconnect with the consumer. I gave an example before on Yinlu.
They are now also being rolled out. We're going to see progress as we move through the year. Your question on destocking. We're really coming to the tail end of that process right now. For milks, I would like to remind you that this category has 3 segments. There's ambient dairy, there's ice cream. There are creamers. Ambient dairy is slow in the large markets, China, Brazil and Middle East. These are the three markets I also talked about in my speech. As far as ice cream is concerned, I would say that the first three months of the years are not necessarily indicative for what's going to happen in the latter part of the year. Lastly, creamers. That is Coffee-mate. That is doing well. That is in North America.
That is growing year-over-year at 5% compounding growth on growth. It has a very strong growth now also in Mexico. It's a very different picture across that category. Okay. The next question is from Patrik Schwendimann from ZKB. Patrik, please go ahead. Good morning.
Good morning, Stephan. I just was wondering why the acquisition effect was lower than expected at 0.6%. I would have assumed that Galderma itself should have had a positive impact of 1.8%. That's my first question. Secondly, regarding the Easter effect, bearing in mind this effect, would you say it would be a fair assumption that quarter two organic growth could be a little bit lower than quarter one? Thank you.
The M&A impact, what's in there is skin health as a positive, you also got to keep in mind that we divested Juicy Juice, Nestlé Korea, PowerBar, and Water HOD last year as an offsetting result. These things balance each other out. In terms of Easter, yeah, Easter was two weeks earlier this year than last year. It is broadly in line with our expectation, and it clearly helped, as you can see from the figures in Zone EMENA, and especially in confectionery and culinary. We do not usually carve out these one-off events in one specific quarter, and we don't guide too much on them. It's the beauty of being a diversified company. It did have an impact, but I would not dare to give you a number right now.
You would say it could be possible to have, in quarter two, similar organic growth as in quarter one?
Again, a quarterly guidance is not usually something we do. We would refer back to a full year guidance of organic growth aiming to afford organic growth of around 5%. That's what we're really building towards.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Next question is from James Targett from Berenberg. Good morning, James. Please go ahead.
Good morning. A two questions from me. Firstly, on water. You've had a two of strong quarters of growth, even on a pretty tough comp this quarter. Just want to see if there are any timing issues or whether you are comfortable that this level of growth could continue. Secondly, just back on frozen in the U.S. Mr. Brabeck made some comments yesterday in the AGM about having found the right solution for the business in 2015. Does this just refer to the communication and innovation that you spoke of, or is there something more there? Thanks.
Okay, thanks, James. On water, look, we have broad-based growth in all geographies and brands. The growth is really, of course, driven by our strategy with our 3-tiered brand hierarchy. It is really growing categories also. We see a good sustained growth in waters. This is for that question. We have focused our choices on premiumization, value-added products, and portfolio strengthening. North America is strong. Europe is doing much better. Overall, this is a very strong performance in waters, and we see that sustaining. As to the comments of Mr. Brabeck from yesterday, no. He referred to the plans that we have in place and that both Paul Bulcke and Wan Ling Martello have talked about at the full year and also on the road shows. He did not mean to say anything different than that.
Okay. Thank you, Stephan.
All right. Next question is from Warren Ackerman from Societe Generale. Good morning, Warren. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Stephan. It's Warren here. Two questions from me as well. First one is on coffee. I'd like to get some more color on coffee. Can you say, Stephan, what soluble coffee did in the quarter? Then just on Nespresso, you talk about a competitive market. Can you tell us exactly where the competition is coming from and perhaps a quick update on how VertuoLine is doing in the U.S.? That's the first question. Then secondly, I guess, the beat today on organic seems to be driven by pricing overall. Can you maybe outline where you've taken most pricing in the quarter? If so, maybe an idea of how quickly, just looking at dairy costs coming down very significantly. Thank you.
I'll take the first one on coffee. The soluble organic growth accelerates, driven also by higher pricing. In coffee, we are the category leader in many markets. As such, we are often the first movers in pricing. That can have an impact on RIG, and it does. Nescafé Dolce Gusto is a growth engine for us with double-digit growth still. It's doing very well. Soluble without Nescafé Dolce Gusto is driven by black cup. We continued innovations with good traction. The micronized added coffee in Japan, the Barista Gold Style, the mixes, new white foaming cappuccino, the Blend & Brew in Malaysia, the new Nescafé Virtual Identity launch proceeds well. Japan, the cafe Nescafé in Harajuku. Overall, this category performs well, but again, pricing taken as a market leader with a slight impact on RIG.
For Nespresso, you asked about the VertuoLine. That is completely on track with our expectations. We alluded to that before. We do see competition coming in. We believe due to the reasons I gave before, we have a very clear positioning in Nespresso with our premium product offer, with the machines, with the service. We're competing, and we believe we're on a good track there as well. Your organic and pricing question. The pricing is driven by what you would expect it to be. It's Latin America. It's the two countries in Eastern Europe that drove pricing, and it's to a smaller effect, actually, also due to the fact that in Western Europe, the negative pricing eased very slightly. These are the effects that hit pricing. Going forward, we don't guide on pricing. Pricing is a very local decision.
It depends on your brand strength in a market, on the strength of your competitor's brands. It also depends on the retail situation in any given market and also on the overall commodities basket. Sometimes the commodity volatility is reflected in pricing. Very often, we try to offset it in other lines of the P&L with efficiencies, with delaying certain parts or finding solutions to commodity volatility in other parts of the P&L.
Thank you, Stephan.
The next question is from Alain-Sebastian Oberhuber from MainFirst. Good morning, Alain. Please go ahead.
Alain-Sebastian Oberhuber, MainFirst. A question again on prepared dish in the U.S. Could you elaborate a little bit on the pizza business in the U.S. specifically? If we are in there already, maybe giving us a pecking order how it looks about the growth between the three ones, i.e., the pizza, the Lean Cuisine, and the Stouffer's. The question in there is, how is Hot Pockets doing? My second question is on the currency impact for the year. If you look at the current environment of currencies, what could be the impact that comes from currencies based on today?
I understood your first question on prepared was more on the categories, right? I hope I understood that question right. The pizza category is close to flat. The overall frozen category in the United States, we see with a very slight negative of about -2%. The pizza category particularly is flat. Everything we said about the frozen category in the United States, that we said we make products more relevant to the consumer. We change our offering, we change the packaging, we change certain parts of the contents. We talked about concepts like gluten-free and so on. That all applies to pizza as well. Interestingly, we do see a very good performance of a frozen pizza in Europe right now, where innovation and premiumization drives a very good performance. On currency, we don't usually guide on currency.
There is an impact for the year, clearly the U.S. dollar has also recovered.
Could you end on Hot Pockets, Stephan? Coming back, what did Hot Pockets do?
Hot Pocket as a category is actually slightly up. The growth in 2014 was impacted by the SNAP reduction. You know SNAP, that's the American food stamp program. Hot Pockets was impacted in 2014 by the SNAP reduction and some voluntary withdrawal of certain SKUs. We had a topic there. The fundamental performance is positive, and we improved recipes and we increased velocity.
Great. Thank you much, Stephan.
Next question is from Jean-Philippe Bertschy from Vontobel. Good morning, Jean-Philippe.
Good morning, Stephan.
Please go ahead.
To come back to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe's comments yesterday about accelerating the adjustments of the portfolio, then he was explicitly mentioning Jorge Paulo Lemann. Should we read that you would take some more aggressive measures with regard to cost cutting? That would be the first question. The second one is on the drought in California. You have said that the growth in the U.S. was strong as well, mid-single digits. Have you seen in that region signs of a slowdown towards the end of the quarter due to this drought and due to the negative press in that region? The third one, a very short one on the buyback. Are you confirming that you would complete the program of the CHF 8 billion at the end of this year?
Okay. For the first one on Mr. Brabeck's comments from yesterday. I would actually say we've said many times in the past that Nestlé is the "and" company. We often said that we believe in order to create value on the long run, we need to grow and improve profitability. This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing on the long term. That really is I think the view we got to give you. In terms of cost cutting, yes, of course, we're doing our homework as well. We've announced the new Nestlé Business Excellence organization under Chris Johnson.
You know that we've taken the GLOBE system, we've put that together with the shared business, and we put that together with the Nestlé Continuous Excellence in order to share, to standardize, and to simplify operations, really to leverage Nestlé's size into more of a strength. The idea here, again, is to free up the resources in the markets to focus on what they have to do in terms of innovation, in terms of growth, and enable them to do that well. That is our view on that. For the drought in California. First, a short reminder maybe. On March 17th, Nestlé has published the latest Creating Shared Value report. You can see this on the web, or you can get a paper copy here from us.
It's a very comprehensive document with many KPIs, where we provide a lot of facts on what we're doing in the overall area of Creating Shared Value. You know that water is one of the key topics, and that is also one of the topics where our chairman is very active. We are concerned with water, and we are also particularly concerned also with the drought in California. We also feel we're part of the solution. We contribute to improve the water footprint. We continue to improve the operational efficiency. Water is the category actually with the lowest water usage versus other beverages. Lastly, from the amount of water we're withdrawing, we're water neutral. We're always withdrawing as much water from our resources as get naturally replenished over time. Finally, we believe the best way to save water is to drink it.
This is obviously a very wide, very complex topic, and I would invite you to reach out to our media relations and to our public relations team, or we can set that up for you. If you want to have a more in-depth discussion, we're happy to do that. Now, for the share buyback. The share buyback is we're now CHF 2.5 billion into the CHF 8 billion program. We said we aim to buy back CHF 8 billion by the end of the year, we also said it's depending on market conditions. Good. That gets me to the next question from Robert Waldschmidt. Robert, good morning. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Could I ask two questions, if I may? Firstly, in terms of the waters business, can you quantify the amount of the business which is now in emerging markets as a % of the division? Secondly, in terms of the U.S. overall, is the U.S. in positive growth? If it is it driven by pricing only? Thank you.
Okay. The first question, the emerging markets for waters are around a quarter of the business. About 20%. For the U.S. overall Sorry, could you repeat your question? I didn't understand that very well.
Yes. Your organic sales growth in the U.S., is it positive? Alongside that, if it is positive, is it driven exclusively by price, or is there positive RIG as well?
The growth in the U.S. is positive. It's driven by RIG, and of course, partly by pricing. Okay.
Okay. Thank you.
Good. Next question from Adam Spielman from Citibank. Good morning, Adam.
Good morning. In fact, my question was a very specific question, and it's already been asked, thank you, and answered, indeed. Thank you very much.
Thank you. That was easy. Next question is from Alan Erskine, UBS. Alan, good morning.
Good morning, Stephan. Just one question from me. If I kind of triangulate the growth rates of the nutrition business and the nutrition category, if I've got my math right, it looks like Nestlé Health Science and Nestlé Skin Health were up 15% in the quarter. I wonder, could you just give us a little bit more color as to what drove that growth, and was there any sort of one-off factors in there that would prevent us from extrapolating that kind of growth rate into the balance of the year? Thank you.
Okay. Look, Nestlé Skin Health performance was good in Q1, and it was in line with our expectation. We do not carve out the contribution of each businesses to the group's organic growth. What I can tell you, both did well, and both contributed to growth. There were no particular one-offs. In terms of the full year, I would come back to our overall guidance on a group level that we aim for 5%.
Thank you.
Okay. Next question is John Revill from The Wall Street Journal. Good morning, John.
Good morning, Stephan. A couple of points. You guys refer to The new European Zone has been quite a good performance, but in actual numbers, sales have actually gone down. I was wondering, how much of that is a pure currency translation? How much of a currency is a strong franc a drag there, or is it something else? You mentioned that the consumer mood is moderately improving in Europe. I just wondered if you could tell me where's doing better and where's struggling a little bit on sort of consumer confidence in Europe, and how sustainable you think that is. That's my first point about Europe. Secondly, just a bit more color on China, please. You say China's kind of improving, but then also you mentioned that China was a drag on sales.
Is China actually in positive territory? Could you give us a bit more color about what's going on? I know you mentioned a bit of it already, but a bit more color on China and when you see that coming back and what's happening out there. Thank you.
Okay, good. These are a couple of quick ones, actually. Europe, yes, it's impacted by currency. The consumer sentiment, we do see better feedback from countries like France, Spain. This is where we see consumer sentiment coming up. China, as we said before, as a market, including the globally managed businesses, is kind of flattish. As I described before, we have parts that are still challenged, and these are the ones we talked about before, and we have other parts that do very well. That in the balance, the market is very slightly positive. The challenges are the ones we talked about and where the programs are underway. Again, I would love to give more updates to that at maybe at our half-year or our nine-months call. That'll be more substantial, I feel.
Right. In Europe, which countries are still struggling on consumer sentiment in Europe? Do you think we've actually turned a corner overall in Europe yet, or is that still too early to call?
We feel that's still too early to call. That's still too early. Look, what we do see is slight improvements here and there. It's early signs, but that's it.
Okay. Where is still tough on the consumer sentiment side, then?
Excuse me?
Where is it still difficult on the consumer sentiment side in Europe?
It's very difficult in places like, for example.
Where is it difficult in Europe on the consumer sentiment side?
It's difficult in places that are obviously challenged like in Greece. It's obviously difficult in places like some parts of Eastern Europe. It's actually also not so easy in Switzerland.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, the next question is from Gerry Gallagher from Deutsche Bank. Jerry, good morning.
Morning, Stephan. Thanks for taking the questions. A couple from me. Just looking for a bit more granularity, if possible. Firstly, just on pricing in Latin America. One of your global FMCG peers yesterday was able to give us a bit of granularity on the contribution to their organic growth from Argentina and Venezuela. I wonder if you could help us a little bit more on that. Then secondly, I'm slightly confused on Galderma. Could you just confirm whether the Galderma numbers are in the organic line or in the acquisitions line? Thank you.
Galderma, it's in both. For pricing in LATAM, look, we do not carve out RIG organic growth by countries, and organic growth always includes some parts of inflation and deflation. Venezuela and some of the hyperinflation countries in that continent are relatively small in sales, they're getting smaller due to the continued devaluation we're doing there. I think that would be it from that standpoint.
Thank you.
I have one final question from Jon Cox again. Hi, Jon.
Yes. Sorry, Stefan. I thought I'd have two bites of the cherry. On the premium confectionery rollout, you mentioned Spain. I'm just wondering, do you have any plans to roll out in North America at all?
That is probably a bit too early to say right now. You see that these are brands that came here from Switzerland, from Europe. We're going market by market, but it's too early to say about a rollout in North America.
Generally, you're pretty satisfied with what you're seeing in France, for example?
Yes. So far we are.
Okay, thanks for taking the call again.
Okay. Good. Well, that was the last question. Thanks very much. That brings us to the end of our three-month sales call. If there are any further questions you want to ask, I think you know all our addresses, web, email, of course, Twitter. Otherwise, we look forward to talking to you again at our half-year results call on August 13th. Until then, thank you for your time, your interest in Nestlé, and I wish you all a great day and a great upcoming weekend. Goodbye.