Good morning. Before I introduce our next presenters, I'd like to take a moment to recognize some of the individuals behind the conference, behind the CAGNY organization these past many years. One of the unique qualities of CAGNY is that it is an all-volunteer organization, and this conference has grown over the past five-plus decades in large part through the efforts of the people who have given their time to keep it going. In that vein, I'd like to have the past presidents of the organization please stand. Please join me in thanking them for their efforts. I also want to make special recognition of our current President, Bonnie Herzog, who has gone above and beyond to make this year's conference one of the best ever.
If you know Bonnie, you know she is one of the most kind-hearted and dedicated people in our industry, and the CAGNY organization is better for having had her steer us over the past 12 months. So, on behalf of the entire CAGNY community, we wanted to say, thank you, Bonnie.
P&G would like to remind you that today's discussion will include a number of forward-looking statements. If you will refer to P&G's most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K reports, you will see a discussion of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections. Additionally, the company has posted on its investor relations website, www.pginvestor.com, a full reconciliation of non-GAAP and other financial measures.
Now it's my privilege to once again welcome The Procter & Gamble Company back to CAGNY. Joining us today are Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten, and Senior Vice President Investor Relations John Chevalier. Please join me in thanking them for their long-time support of the conference, especially their generous sponsorship of breakfast this morning. Over the better part of a decade, P&G has been a bastion of strategic consistency, no matter what the world has thrown at them. In every year since 2018, P&G has been able to hold or grow share in the majority of its top 50 category country combinations, while steadily adding to its overall global market share position, momentum that continued through the most recent quarter. At the same time, the focus on cost discipline, productivity, and prudent capital allocation has yielded balanced top and bottom line growth, as well as strong free cash flow generation.
The company continues to iterate and advance its integrated growth strategy, empowering an increasingly agile organization and relentlessly optimizing performance across portfolio choices and key capabilities in the areas of supply chain and digital competency, and ultimately winning with consumers. We look forward to hearing about the state of the business and the strong outlook, including what is no doubt an irresistibly superior innovation pipeline, and with that, over to Andre.
Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone. I'll start with a review of results and the dynamics for the current fiscal year, and then we will talk strategy. Starting with results, fiscal 2024 completed the sixth consecutive year of 4% or better organic sales growth, a strong year in challenging market conditions. As we expected, the challenges have continued in fiscal 2025. First-half results were below the guidance ranges we set for the full year, and while recent consumer trends and foreign exchange rates make the balance of the year more challenging, we continue to expect accelerating results in the second half. We have now delivered 26 consecutive quarters of 2% or better organic sales growth, averaging 5.5% organic sales growth over those six and a half years.
Over the last four quarters, top-line growth has been slower, as we reported against strong base period comparisons, inflation-driven pricing annualized, and as market and brand dynamics in a few regions created well-known headwinds. Growth has been broad-based across categories, with 8 of 10 categories growing organic sales in the first half of fiscal 2025. Through the first half, organic sales in Focus Markets are up 3%, and Enterprise Markets are up 1%. Five of seven regions are growing organic sales. 28 of our top 50 category country combinations holding or growing share in the first half, with global aggregate value share up 10 basis points. North America delivered broad-based market share growth over the same period, with 8 of 10 categories holding or growing volume share and 8 of 10 categories holding or growing value share.
Europe Focus Markets ' volume share increased 20 basis points, with 7 of 9 categories holding or growing volume share. Value share was in line with prior year. We have now delivered eight and a half fiscal years of 2% or better core EPS growth, averaging nearly 8% over that period, and this is the type of long-term balanced top and bottom line growth we strive to deliver. Solid, consistent over time. As we have discussed, 85% of the business made up of North America, Europe Focus, Asia-Pacific Focus, Europe Enterprise, and Latin America regions have been performing well. Combined, these five regions delivered 4% growth in the first half of the fiscal year. The front half for the remaining 15% of the business comprised of Greater China and Asia, Middle East, Africa has been difficult, with organic sales down 5%.
Looking forward, we expect the environment around us to continue to be volatile and challenging, from input costs to currencies to consumer, retailer, and geopolitical dynamics. The market-level challenges we faced are well-documented and have yet to fundamentally improve. Soft market conditions persist in China, making further progress difficult. Anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East continues, and we've seen slowing market consumption in the Asia, Middle East, Africa region, including India. As we noted on our earnings call last month, we saw category growth rates in the U.S. take a step down in December. Market growth has picked up in January and February, but it is very volatile week to week. We're pleased with the strong U.S. consumption data we've seen for P&G brands, but shipments are off to a comparatively slow start so far this quarter.
Tariffs enacted and proposed introduce additional layers of volatility we're watching closely, such as direct cost impacts from moving raw material and finished product across borders, the impact on foreign exchange rates, on interest rates, and the impact of nationalistic consumer behavior. We're managing all of these headwinds with a mid- and long-term view in our mind. As we've said many times, we are willing to adjust our short-term outlook if needed to protect our investment in the long-term health of our brands. This is exactly what we did during COVID, and it served us well. While we are not making changes to our fiscal year guidance ranges today, we will continue to balance a strong drive for productivity improvement in all areas of cost with our desire to maintain healthy support for the strong innovation program launching this quarter.
This choice, coupled with the early quarter shipment trends, creates near-term top and bottom line pressure. So, in summary, we are strengthening our plans to support the low end of our guidance ranges for the year, but with the current volatility, what it will take to hold the low end has become a fast-moving target. There is some level of probability that external factors may lead to a slightly below guidance range outcome on the bottom line as we protect investments in innovation for the second half. As we get more visibility over the coming weeks, we'll continue to be transparent about the implications on our outlook. Longer term, the growth and value creation potential for P&G remains intact and very strong. We will use a combination of innovation, pricing, and productivity to enable continuous investment in our brands to drive category growth and value creation.
Innovation is as strong as ever. Pricing and innovation go hand in hand, as we have seen for the last 19 out of 20 years, and the productivity pipeline is very strong. We remain confident that the best path forward is to double down on the strategy that has enabled strong results. Executing our strategy, especially under pressure, is our path forward. Our long-term growth objectives are unchanged. As a market leader in most of our categories, our job is to drive market growth and grow our business ahead of the underlying market. This is the foundation of our long-term growth algorithm, delivering organic sales growth modestly ahead of the underlying growth of the markets in which we compete.
We're targeting long-term core earnings per share growth of mid to high single digits, which requires annual margin expansion of 30- 70 basis points each year, depending on the top-line results. This range reflects our intention to maintain strong investment in the business to support mid and long-term top and bottom line growth. We expect to turn these earnings into strong levels of cash generation, delivering free cash flow productivity of 90% or better every year. Our priorities for cash utilization are first, to fully fund the business. Second, maintain our long track record of dividend payments and increases. Third, fund any strategic acquisitions. And finally, we will return remaining cash to owners via share repurchase. We will remain balanced across the top line, the bottom line, and cash.
Of course, given the volatility in currencies, commodities, economies, and the geopolitical environment, not every year will look like the algorithm, but over three- to five-year periods, results should mirror this balanced growth objective. This is how we define winning. Now let's double down on the drivers of our strategy: portfolio superiority, productivity, constructive disruption, and an empowered, agile, and accountable organization. These strategic choices reinforce and build on each other. When executed well, they grow markets, creating business which in turn grows our share sales, household penetration, and profit. A focused portfolio of daily-use products in categories where performance drives brand choice. A resilient portfolio of non-discretionary products that have performed well pre-COVID, through COVID, through a historic inflationary cycle in 180 countries and territories around the world.
We remain very disciplined in our portfolio choices, including some moves over the past year to strengthen our ability to generate U.S. dollar-based returns. Next strategy element: ongoing commitment to and investment in irresistible superiority through innovation. Across the five vectors of product, package, brand communication, retail execution, and value, holistically defined. No one vector of superiority can carry the day by itself. All five need to work together. Superior performing products and superior packages provide noticeably better benefits to consumers. They become aware and learn about these products through superior brand communications. This comes to life in stores and online with superior retail execution and delivers superior consumer value at a price that is considered worth it across each price tier in which we choose to compete.
We look at superiority as a never-ending challenge and opportunity, and we invest raising the bar on our superiority standards in response to consumer needs and changes in the industry. So, on superior products, Tide evo represents the biggest innovation in laundry in over a century. Crafted by concentrating active surfactant ingredients into a mixture that is then spun into individual fibers, this sophisticated process ensures each functional fiber delivers the powerful cleaning performance of Tide in fully recyclable packaging. No plastic bottles, no water. This new-to-the-world formulation and assembly process is proprietary to P&G and protected by over 50 granted patents, making it a truly unique technology. Let's see how we're communicating this to our consumers.
Imagine if Tide disappeared. Wait, what? Not like that. Like Tide evo. Imagine if the heavy laundry lift disappeared. Imagine if that pile of stuff just cleaned. Disappeared? Yes. And an evolved clean appeared. Introducing the revolutionary new Tide evo. So clean, it disappears.
Tide evo is currently in test market in Colorado. As you know, we are encouraged that our results are trending at or above expectations. We are also making progress in our manufacturing, learning, and scaling process. Consumers face daily challenges in maintaining clean clothes, and only 46% of them are satisfied with the odor removal during the laundry process. Downy Rinse & Refresh and Tide Clean Boost Fabric Rinse are breakthrough laundry odor removers that help rinse away stubborn residue deep within fabrics. This new liquid form enables great cleaning and great odor removal. Let's watch the ad.
Every now and then I get a little bit tired of the stinks that just will never come out. Downy Rinse and Refresh is formulated to remove odor better than detergent alone, with no rewashing. One wash, it smells so clean. Downy Rinse and Refresh is the dream. Downy Rinse and Refresh fights odor in just one wash, guaranteed.
Downy Rinse and Refresh and Tide Clean Boost Fabric Rinse are solving a consumer problem and driving category growth. These products are incremental to the laundry regimen and were the number one driver of fabric enhancer category growth over the past 12 months. Globally, P&G's fabric enhancers grew organic sales high single digits in the first half of fiscal 2025, on top of mid-single digits in fiscal 2024. The global fabric enhancer market is growing high single digits, and P&G's share is up 30 basis points over the last 12 months. Tide OXI Boost Power PODS have just launched online with a great response from retailers and consumers. OXI Boost includes two times the OXI Power to provide Tide's most powerful clean. OXI Boost Power PODS will be available in stores soon. These superior innovations follow and continue the long track record of P&G delivering market-appreciative innovations in fabric care.
P&G's growth in U.S. fabric care over the last 50 years is impressive, with a remarkable increase of 500% in a market that has grown fourfold. Market growth has been the primary driver of our success. 80% of our growth can be attributed to it, thanks to our focus on superior innovations like we just shared: Tide evo, Downy and Tide Rinse, and Tide OXI Boost Power PODS. We see significant opportunities to drive further market growth ahead of us. We introduced irresistibly superior whole body deodorant sticks, sprays, and creams, leveraging our superior long-lasting freshness, skincare, and spray technologies. In 2023, Native reinvented the spray deodorant experience for consumers with nitrogen-powered sprays that deliver a superior application that's more sustainable because the formula contains no hydrocarbons. The ozone-friendly natural propellant was expanded across Native, Old Spice, and Secret with the 2024 launch of whole body deodorants.
We were the first company to launch whole body deodorant sprays, and we now have the number one product in the segment. Whole body deodorant innovation, which delivers on our high standards of superiority across all five vectors, delivered great results. The U.S. deodorant category value grew double digits over the past 3, 6, and 12 months, with P&G value and volume share growing across all those time periods. Superior products in superior packaging with superior communication. In female blades and razors, we launched our biggest product upgrade in 25 years. New razor handle design, significant blade improvements with beautiful new packaging, superior product in superior packaging. Our most popular platinum range was upgraded and expanded, and for the first time ever, all Venus system razors will be sold with a shower hook, which we know delights consumers and increases consumption in the category.
This innovation is amplified by the brand's new digital and social media-led communications in addition to traditional ads. So let's take a look.
My skin? Dry and flaky. So I need a razor that's made for it. New Venus PRO ComfortGlide. Locks in moisture for smooth and glowing skin. Mine, she gets irritated. So I go for PRO Smooth Sensitive. It has a strip with a touch of aloe. For a shave that's close and gentle. Pubic area? There's one for that too. To keep my skin extra protected. Get a shave made for your skins. My skin, my way. Venus.
Venus is driving superior retail execution as we roll out our female house of grooming shelf design to continue to lead category growth. Globally, Venus grew organic sales 9% in the first half of fiscal 2025, on top of 11% last year, creating and leading high single-digit category growth. P&G's value and volume shares are up 1.5 points over the past 12 months, with an accelerating trend past six and past three months. Superior value. For consumers, the brand is presented in a clear and shoppable way at a compelling price. The consumer feels the price is worth it for the purchase and performance across each price tier where the brand is offered. Superior value for the customer is delivering sufficient margin and penny profit, driving trips to the store and increasing basket size, which all leads to category growth.
A great example of this is our Cascade automatic dishwashing business in the U.S. We created Cascade Platinum Plus as a new premium tier, but in doing so, we ensured that it fits seamlessly with our other tiers, base and platinum, so that shoppers could easily find the right product at the right value for their needs. As a result, Cascade Platinum Plus is the number one automatic dishwashing sub-brand in the category. Cascade grew 6% in the first half of fiscal 2025, following 8% growth in fiscal 2024. In just a little over a year since we launched Cascade Platinum Plus, the brand is responsible for 100% of the U.S. auto dish category growth. We also deliver superior value at our most premium price points. SK-II recently launched a supercharged product line called LXP.
It contains eight times the concentration of PITERA and is positioned in the super premium segment of the Prestige skin market. This superior product and a beautiful package sold online and in department stores with upgraded counters and beauty counselors is a superior value for the PITERA-loving, loyal consumer. Since September, SK-II's domestic consumption in China is both ahead of year-ago and ahead of the market. SK-II was the fastest-growing Prestige skincare brand in China's Double 11 key consumption period, and it delivered 5% organic sales growth in the December quarter. While the China market challenges are not over, we're confident that our focus on superiority across the brand will strengthen results going forward. Our innovation pipeline is one of the stronger bundles in recent history.
We remain invested in developing innovation in each of our categories to attract new users and help them more effectively tackle current and new jobs to be done. Superiority also demands investment in our capabilities, response to consumer needs, and changes in our industry. So let's take a look at what we're doing to build capabilities in brand communication and in retail execution. Superior brand communication requires each brand to optimize reach, presenting our messages in the right forums at just the right frequency, effectiveness delivering compelling messages that attract consumers to our brands, and efficiency, ensuring we're executing our advertising plans at the best possible value. We're using automated media buying to increase media reach with greater precision. Programmatic and algorithm-based media buying enables brands to reach consumers across relevant media, fueled by viewing data and permission-based first-party consumer data collected in the Consumer 360 data platform.
This proprietary database enables brands to use target audience algorithms to reach the widest range of consumers where they are the most receptive to messages serving ads at the right frequency each week, all year around. We are also leveraging AI to accelerate the development and effectiveness of advertising ideas. Our AI Studios use decades of P&G brand ad research data correlated to in-market sales results for fast-cycle iterative pre-market ad testing based on consumer reactions. Ads can now be tested and optimized in just a few days versus weeks at one-tenth of the cost versus prior method.
Our Great Idea Generator proprietary platform is transforming the idea creation process by enabling concept development in minutes versus weeks, increasing the number of concepts created tenfold, viewing and editing in one to two hours versus 600-plus hours, and improving quality in the ideation process since the AI leverages an array of data sources well beyond what's available in the current processes. We're also developing new tools and capabilities to win at the physical and digital shelf. At the physical store, we have proprietary tools such as Programmatic Shelf, which enable us to use our wealth of data, knowledge, and insights to recommend optimized shelf sets to retailers in terms of space, assortment, and arrangement to deliver profitable category growth.
For the digital shelf, we've developed proprietary tools to optimize content and search so when shoppers pick up their mobile and search for a product, we are easy to find and a very obvious choice. These tools deliver qualified content and more relevant sponsored search results to consumers at a more efficient cost. To achieve best-in-class availability, we've developed a real-time solution that combines retailer and P&G data with proprietary algorithms to accurately predict and detect out-of-stock situations. We can identify the structural reasons for the issue and recommend solutions that optimize the supply chain so the fix not only drives availability but also improves cost and cash efficiency. In addition to availability, we're also experimenting with new ways to expand our reach, especially in areas of the world where there are a large number of small independent retailers.
In Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa alone, we've analyzed more than 20 million images and point-of-sale data across 300 country customer category combinations to provide retailers with insights to optimize their shelf sets. For example, in a retailer in the United Arab Emirates, we combined insights on the idea portfolio with our Programmatic Shelf capability to recommend an elevated haircare shelf, which eliminated unproductive items that represented 10% of the shelf but only 3% of sales. The change resulted in growth across the category, disproportionate growth for P&G. Fewer items on the shelf also reduced complexity and cost for retailers and their supply chain network. Productivity, our third strategy element, gives us the fuel to invest in superiority, mitigate costs and currency headwinds, and drive margin expansion.
We have extended our visibility to productivity improvements with each business building three-year cost savings master plans, mirroring what we've done for years in our innovation program. We have opportunities to drive efficiency up and down our P&L and across our balance sheet from cost of goods sold to marketing to partnering with retailers to drive in-store and online productivity. Supply 3.0 is our next phase of supply chain productivity, integrating flow from suppliers to customers, extending all the way to retailers' shelves. It targets 98% on-shelf and online availability at all times, with a runway of up to $1.5 billion before tax in gross productivity savings every year, and 90% greater threshold productivity, all to enable us to meet or exceed our total shareholder return targets.
We are driving improvements in service, cost, and cash by optimizing not only P&G's cost of goods sold but also identifying jointly with our customers and distributors additional ways to drive further losses out of our collective supply chain systems. We believe this shift, which includes both physical and data flow, will unlock value and enable consistent productivity savings while also creating a win-win-win for retail partners, for our shoppers, and for P&G. We know that automation technologies play a key role in accelerating supply chain progress in our manufacturing sites. We have now reached a stage where real-time vision cameras are able to capture visual data, and then advanced algorithms can analyze products for superior quality. Gone are the days when we could only check the quality of a case picked from the production line every half hour.
With real-time touchless quality, we can now evaluate each individual item as it is being produced, an amazing opportunity to eliminate human touches and errors in data transfer to drive productivity and to guarantee superior quality in every unit produced. Additionally, the Gillette Berlin plant for global grooming has successfully implemented the Unattended Night Shift, eliminating the need for technicians and reducing touches. They transitioned from three eight-hour shifts to two ten-hour shifts with touchless operations for the remaining four hours. This transformation delivered structural savings while delivering a more desirable employee experience by eliminating the very unpopular overnight shift. There's a lot of additional opportunity in Berlin, but in every site around the world. In advertising, we have runway for $500 million -$700 million of annual savings and efficiencies, which we expect to continue reinvesting in media reach, advertising, and effectiveness. We are reinventing the agency model again.
We've reduced the number of agencies retained by more than half from 6,000 ten years ago, delivering $100 million in average annual savings. We've now enabled broad-based agency partnership flexibility from long-term partnerships with one core agency to a most valuable partner model that selects and hires star creative talent regardless of agency so brands can source the best creative work from anywhere. We're implementing in-house media operations, achieving annual media savings of up to $500 million through data and analytics capabilities applied to planning, negotiation, scheduling, placement, and buying, and we now have in-house operations in nearly 100% of North America, China, and Europe-focused markets representing 80% of P&G's total media spend. We're starting in enterprise market, and we're moving to more in-house advertising production. This helps brands develop ideas and high-quality execution faster to increase sales and save more than $100 million annually in ad production spending.
North America personal care is leading this way, reducing from dozens of agencies to only one, improving quality and reducing cost per ad as well as ad development and execution time by 50%. 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. Finally, but clearly not last, we have designed and continue to refine and strengthen an empowered, agile, and accountable organization focused on business outcomes designed to deliver the greatest value creation. We call this an integrated strategy for a reason. Each element is incredibly important. The real advantage comes from being able to do all of these things at the same time all the time. This strategy is inherently dynamic.
It adapts to the changing needs of consumers, customers, and society, and the geopolitical dynamics around us. We're very pleased with the results P&G people executing this integrated strategy have delivered in a very challenging and volatile environment. 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-to-bottom line growth and value creation. With that, we'll be happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Dara Mohsenian , Morgan Stanley. Two questions, short term and long term. Maybe just in the short term, can you clarify a little bit the U.S. retail inventory dynamics you're seeing, how significant it is in magnitude? What do you think is driving it? Are there any particular product categories that are impacted the most?
As you think about the earnings line relative to the top line, if you do see volatility, does that sort of flow through to the earnings line? Are there areas of offset you can come up with? Just how you think about that. And maybe a bit of a segue just in terms of AI, the yields you're getting from that. Examples were helpful on the marketing side. But as you think about marketing, innovation, productivity, are you getting a much greater yield from those areas at this point? Does it take time to ramp up? Just how do you think about that conceptually, understanding there's not some exact number? Thanks.
Thanks, Dara. We see market growth in the U.S. in January-February around 4%, a little bit above 4% across all channels. We are growing both volume share and value share.
But our shipment trends are significantly below quarter to date. They are probably lagging 3 points. There's an effect that is understandable, which is the late start of the flu season, of the cold cough season. So I think retailers are using existing inventory, and we need to see if reorders occur within the quarter. But there's a general trend of inventory depletion that we see across retailers. As we said, we don't know if this is going to sustain, if it's just a phenomenon that we see every year due to retailer fiscal year-ends. So we're watching this closely. But most importantly, it creates volatility across quarters. But the encouraging fact here is our brands continue to perform extremely well. Consumer offtake is stable and accelerating versus December.
Share is growing, so we feel good about where we are going into one of the strongest innovation bundles we've launched in the U.S. in a long time. So relatively confident there. On the earnings flexibility, I would tell you that's part of the plan we're working for the year. Obviously, the short-term volatility is what the short-term volatility will be. It's hard to react in the short term within a quarter, so we tolerate that volatility if we need to. But we are looking at potential choices that give us flexibility to strengthen our plans while maintaining the low end of the guidance. So this is what we meant by looking into all possible strengthening plans for the business, funding those while using productivity and other choices to deliver the low end of the guidance on the EPS range.
On your AI question, Dara, I'll tell you it's too early to determine the scalability. I think we're in the phase where every AI implementation, every algorithmic data implementation we do is on a case-by-case basis based on that individual payout. We're not yet at a stage where this is fully scalable with one solution around the world, and it really depends on the cost structure you operate in around the world. Don't know definitive answer there. Bryan.
Thank you. Bryan Spillane, Bank of America. Andre, maybe to pick up on your answer to Dara's question, if the current operating environment stays the same, right, into let's say over the next 12 months, so let's begin to look into even fiscal 2026, would that support, does this environment actually support your ability to hit algorithm? Would it require more market share gains?
Just trying to get an understanding of just it's been surprising, right, that the environment continues to be as volatile as it is. If so, just how we should think about that and how you're thinking about it. Do you strive to hit a target that maybe the environment in the near term might not work?
I think I feel good about our ability to deliver algorithm over a three- to five-year period, which is really how we're operating. I want to shy away from trying to deliver algorithm on a quarterly basis or yearly basis because it's a very volatile dynamic we're operating in. Then if you step back for next year, I think what is true when we had the earnings call is still true.
If the majority of the business, that 85% bundle of markets we're talking about, continues to grow at the pace that we see it growing and have seen it growing over the past 12 months and still see it growing consistently, except for December in the U.S., I think we're in a good place. Even if China doesn't accelerate, even if the Middle East continues to be somewhat troubled, we have a good shot at getting close to algorithm. We also have a good shot at continuing the level of innovation and brand support because we have the productivity muscle to do it. So I feel confident about our ability to deliver algorithm even if this more difficult environment continues. Core to that is North America, Europe, Latin America continuing to deliver at the level that we've seen them deliver over the past two, three quarters. Andrea.
Andrea Teixeira, JP Morgan. I wanted to follow up just on the cold and flu impact within your guidance. So in other words, should we expect since the consumption is about the same that you expected for the other categories in the U.S.? So I wanted to kind of think about the other portion of the guidance because obviously, that's the peak season. And as you go into the fourth quarter fiscal, you wouldn't have that impact. So I'm thinking, what do you need to do? And that's what you were saying, like you're protecting the bottom line at the bottom of the range. But can you use promotions and try to reignite that? Or that's not a question that you can recover the top line to be at the bottom of the range and not miss the bottom there?
What would have to happen, let's put it this way, to keep that guidance?
What I'll tell you is I think we have to assume that eventually shipments follow consumption, not in the quarter, but on the fiscal year, right? It's hard to imagine that that level of inventory reduction would be intended or sustainable given where we entered the quarter. So that has to be temporary. We have to recover the majority of those shipments, maybe not every case, but the majority, which is true for personal healthcare categories as well as for every other category. And in terms of promotion, it will be part of the toolbox, but in combination with innovation. So we want to use promotion to drive incremental visibility of new innovation in store. We want to ensure that we drive trial.
And some of these innovations that you see are in categories that have significant penetration opportunities even in the U.S. So we want to shy away from deep value discounting. That doesn't grow markets. It doesn't grow categories. It doesn't grow our share. But trial driving activation is what we're after. Filippo.
Thank you. Filippo Falorni, Citi. I wanted to ask about Enterprise Markets . They've been running below Focus Markets over the last two quarters. And obviously, there's been a slowdown in Latin America. But also you called out the weakness in AMEA. And some of it has been the Middle East, but you also call out India being a little bit softer. So maybe can you give a little bit of a rundown around the world on the key Enterprise Markets ? Thank you.
I think two of the Enterprise Markets , Latin America and Europe Enterprise Markets , are coming up against very strong or have come up against very strong base periods. I think Latin America was comping 17% in the first half of the year, and so if you look at underlying market conditions, they are not easy, but I do feel very good about strong recovery in Latin America to mid-single digits or slightly higher. Again, strong innovation portfolio coming, so I think that is promising on Europe Enterprises, similar base period effect. Even stronger innovation and market-specific plans with retailers that give me confidence that we can continue to deliver mid-single digit growth in Europe Enterprise market. Asia, Middle East, Africa, a bit more dynamic. Fundamentally unchanged. We see major impact on Western retailers from an anti-Western sentiment, which is impacting us as well.
And yes, we see a little bit of slowdown in the India market. Mainly the price component is coming down. But again, if I compare our odds at operating in a market like India and driving household penetration and accelerating that growth via the right activation of our innovation, I remain very confident that we will. But it will be, I think AMEA will take a little bit longer and will be a bit bumpier over the next two quarters. Lauren.
Thanks. Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. So I'm a little confused, right? So if what we're talking about, that's what really has really changed, is the shipments below consumption and the destocking in the U.S. because you're talking about gaining value and volume share. Categories have recovered and are healthy versus December. The innovation is all there. So why are we even having a conversation about multi-year?
Can we hit algorithm? I'm feeling like there's a conversation that's happening that's sort of worse than inventory adjustments at retail in the U.S. when you've had very good trends with the consumer, your innovation's on point. So I don't know if we're all missing something, you're not being clear about something, but I feel like there's a disconnect in where this conversation is going. So I'd love if you could try to clarify.
Yeah. I think it's the same message, Lauren, that we've given in earnings. The fundamentals of the business are very strong in the U.S., in Europe, in Latin America, which is, I think, what we've just repeated. There is a ton of volatility still in the rest of the markets. That volatility can go either way. And again, we don't know more about that volatility than we've known at the time of Q2 earnings.
China remains difficult. AMEA, as we just talked, remains difficult. That is the volatility that we had articulated in the earnings call and are attempting to articulate now. The only thing that is new is exactly as you say. We saw an unexpected volatility in U.S. market growth in December and in the early weeks of the current quarter, combined with a slow shipment pattern relative to strong consumption, which averages out the consumption pattern over a number of weeks. That should be temporary, as we said. If you assume that dynamic is temporary and will even out over the fiscal year, we're exactly where we were at Q2 earnings. As we try to articulate longer term, we don't see any issues delivering all of them, maybe not every year, maybe not every quarter, but the fundamentals of our categories remain the same.
Markets are growing 3%-4%. We should grow ahead of markets. We have a productivity program and innovation that allows us to grow these markets everywhere in the world. And we have enough productivity muscle to drive the margin expansion we need to deliver algorithm. So I hope that clarifies. Robert.
Circling back on the same question in another angle. So what exactly are the retailers telling you? And assuming that consumer demand stays as strong as that we're seeing, presumably you've got good insight into inventory levels. You've got the best information systems in the world. You know what the store inventories are. At a certain point, they are going to have to reorder. What is your best guess of when that reordering is likely to happen? And again, what are the retailers saying to you?
So for us, the base assumption, which we're confirming in reiterating our guidance for the year, is that the reorder pattern will happen within the fiscal year. Whether it happens in Q3 or it happens in Q4, we don't know. We're very early still. Retailers are closing their fiscal years. So it really depends on their decision and their cycle. But experience will tell us we will see the inventory restocking within the fiscal year. The exact timing is unknown. Bill.
Thanks. Bill Chappell from Truist Securities. Not asking for a political statement, but can you just remind us the size of your business in Russia before you exited? What assets, if anything, is there? And if you could ever re-enter the market or how easy or hard that might be?
We have continued to operate under the same premise in Russia since the conflict began.
We have significantly reduced our portfolio to focus really on core categories and core brands for consumers in Russia. In terms of volume, the business now is about half the size it was before the conflict. But we are present in all basic categories. We have both manufacturing assets on the ground for the majority of the consumption in Russia. And we have partly continued to import into Russia for those categories where we don't have assets on the ground. We have not invested in capital. We have not invested in brand building in Russia for a long period of time. But the business is stable. So should there be a hopefully peaceful resolution of the conflict, we feel positioned to be able to continue to drive business in Russia. I think that's probably a good stopping point. And we'll move to the breakout session. Thanks.