Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KMB) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NASDAQ: KMB) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 27, 2026

Corporate Participants:

Christopher Jakubik — Vice President of Investor Relations

Mike Hsu — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Nelson Urdaneta — Chief Financial Officer

Russ Torres — President and Chief Operating Officer

Analysts:

Bonnie Herzog — Analyst

Lauren Lieberman — Analyst

Nik Modi — Analyst

Steve Powers — Analyst

Christopher Carey — Analyst

Michael Lavery — Analyst

Robert Moskow — Analyst

Edward Lewis — Analyst

Presentation:

operator

Welcome to the Kimberly Clark 4Q 2025 earnings call. this time all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the opening remarks. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star0 on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Chris Jakubic, Vice President of Investor Relations. Chris, you may begin.

Christopher Jakubik — Vice President of Investor Relations

Thanks so much and good morning everyone. This is Chris Jakubic, Head of Investor Relations at Kimberly Clark and thank you for joining us. I would like to remind everyone that during our comments today we will make some forward looking statements that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ due to risks and uncertainties and these are discussed in our earnings release and our filings with the sec.

We will also discuss some non GAAP financial measures during these remarks and these non GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results and you can find the GAAP and non GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and the supplemental material is posted@investor.kimberly-clark.com Finally, I will apologize in advance if there are issues with the quality or delays in our audio today because we are all working remotely due to the winter storm.

So with that I’ll turn it over to Mike for a few opening comments.

Mike Hsu — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

All right, thank you Chris Two years ago we launched Power Care to unlock Kimberly Clark’s next chapter of growth, building on our 150 year legacy. Now since then we’ve made tremendous progress and accelerated our momentum across the board. Our execution of Power and Care is driving strong results even amidst a dynamic external environment. In 2025 we continued to advance our volume plus mix growth model, delivering an eighth consecutive quarter of solid volume plus mix performance. In Q4 we gained enterprise weighted share and we marked a second straight year of industry leading productivity with our fourth quarter being the strongest of the year.

The energy across our company is palpable. We are introducing consumer directed science based innovation and breakthrough marketing across brands and markets faster than ever before. We’re exercising cost discipline and deploying our greatest capabilities across the enterprise to optimize our margin structure. And we’ve rewired our organization for growth including strengthening our bench of exceptional leaders and pivoting our portfolio to higher growth higher margin personal care categories. We’ve hit the ground running in 2026 and are energized by the opportunity ahead. We’ve built a robust achievable plan focused on further differentiating our trusted brands and ensuring we have healthy levels of investment across our value chain.

We expect pressure on the consumer and a focus on value to persist. We’re confident in our strategy and committed to giving our brands the fuel to thrive. Power and care has put Kimberly Clark on a virtuous cycle of growth and positioned this great American company for a better future. We have the right foundation and a proven playbook to capitalize on our pending acquisition of Kenview. Acquiring Kenview is a powerful next step in our transformation that will compound our momentum. It will advance our trajectory toward higher growth, higher margin spaces, and create a global health and wellness leader positioned to serve consumers at every stage of life.

We’re excited to seize the vast opportunity ahead and confident we will create significant value for our consumers, our partners, and our shareholders. So with that, let’s open the line for questions.

Questions and Answers:

operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. In the interest of time, we ask that participants limit themselves to one question. On today’s call. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, while we pull for questions.

And the first question today is coming from Bonnie Herzog from Goldman Sachs. Bonnie, your line is live.

Bonnie Herzog

All right, thank you. Good morning. So I guess I was hoping to hear some color on the state of the consumer and what you’re doing different in this environment. Mike, I ask because you’re growing volumes, whereas this really has been challenging for others. And then how are you thinking about this going forward? Are you guided? Organic sales could be in line ahead of the category in 26. So hoping you could share what your expectations are for category growth this year and whether it will accelerate from the 2% growth currently. I guess essentially do you need end market growth to improve to hit your mid single to high single digit EBIT growth guidance? Thanks.

Mike Hsu

Okay. Hey Bonnie, great question. Thanks for that. I’ll open. And I think Russ has a lot more texture that he’s raring to inform you all of. And then I might even ask Nick Nelson to cover a little bit about how it affects the outlook. But one, and I think you raised the point that we are growing and it’s a tough environment out there. However, I think the big thing is that maybe two, two and a Half years ago, Bonnie, we did see that pressure in almost all markets was going to increase on the consumer and especially in North America, kind of given the state of the middle class consumer.

And so, you know, we started to focus on was delivering superior propositions at what we said is every rung of the good, better, best ladder. Right. And so we work really hard to do that and we continue to see ample opportunity to do that and do that better and also continue to elevate and expand our categories globally. A couple additional comments. You know, we feel consumers remain interested in better performing products and that’s at all price tiers. In this environment, as I think you’re pointing out, Bonnie, you know, strong value proposition is the paramount thing. And so we’re growing because what we’re doing is strengthening our offerings at every rung. And that means we’re continuing to bring great innovation at the top end and then we are rushing that innovation through into our value tiers.

And I think our consumers are really noticing that we’ve really worked hard to deliver superiority at a very, very competitive cost. So we see further opportunity to expand our categories, expand penetration and premiumize. Over time, we’ve developed a robust pipeline of innovation that the world hasn’t seen yet. I will tell you parenthetically, I’m more excited about our next three years innovation than what we’ve done in our past three. And so we’re really excited about what the company’s been working on.

So with that, maybe I’ll kick it to Russ and maybe you can provide a little texture.

Russ Torres

Yeah. Thanks Mike. Hi Bonnie. Yeah, you’re right. I don’t think we are expecting, as Mike noted, the consumer focus on value to change anytime soon. And as Mike noted, I really think our mantra has been to meet consumers where they need us. And that’s with a combination of innovation, marketing in activation and like other categories, we are seeing consumers demand shift across channels. They’re looking for different pack sizes. Purchase frequency in some parts of the world, especially internationally and in developing markets, you know, is being impacted a little bit. And that’s clearly led to kind of more, more choppy month to month consumption data.

So in terms of your question, I think Mike nailed it. You know, I would just add a little bit more texture on it is that, you know, we’re really focused on serving consum on every rung with a compelling value proposition. I think that’s the reason why we’re growing volumes right now. We have made a number of targeted price pack adjustments as well as paying extra special attention to channel participation and ensuring we have really compelling offerings at the good tier as well as the better and the best tier. And we put an extraordinary effort into driving elevated benefits on the trade upside to maintain that category growth.

And I think in North America, if you pick that as an example, that’s really helped us on the volume side in Q4, as you saw from our results, our volume mix was up 1.7%. But on a two year stack basis in Q4 it was up 3.6%. And then the full year basis in North America, volume mix was up in Q4 2.1. And on a two year stack basis it was up 4.1. And I agree with Mike, 26 should probably be one of our best years for innovation. And we’re going to continue executing that strategy and are optimistic we’ll continue to be able to deliver what consumers are looking for.

Mike Hsu

Yeah. And then Bonnie, just to follow up on your, on the final part of your question, I think our 26 kind of implies, you know, our category outlook’s around 2% globally, plus or minus. And you know, there’s been, if you looked at the last four quarters, there’s been a little choppiness around that. But you know, if you think if you look specifically at our categories, we tend to be more resilient and demand tends to be a little more stable because of the categories that we’re in.

Bonnie Herzog

All right, thank you. I’ll pass it on.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Lauren Lieberman from Barclays. Lauren, your line is live.

Lauren Lieberman

Thanks so much. Just wanted to follow on some of those thoughts and particularly honing in on price and mix in North America. We’ve seen pricing took another step back this quarter after being up in 3Q and mix persistently negative. I know you look at volume mix, but price mix is decelerating, not improving. So just wanted if you could comment on that because you’d mentioned price investments a couple places in the release. Thanks.

Russ Torres

Anybody take that one? Mike?

Mike Hsu

Yeah, go ahead.

Russ Torres

So, yeah. Hey Lauren, how you doing? Good to talk, I would say, you know, there’s really three things going on there on the price mix. You know, the first thing that I would say is there was a promo dynamic. If you recall, in the third quarter call, we talked about the competitive activity in North America in the second half being, you know, some fairly significant promotional activity. And we as a result of that rephrased some of our, our planned activation activity around innovation into the fourth quarter. So you’re seeing that come through. And specifically just to remind you, as Mike said, we’re in essential categories.

We don’t believe that promo drives incremental consumption, but we will use it as a tactic to drive trial, especially related to innovation. That is really sensorial. And we did have a strong agenda of innovation in 2025 and you probably saw some of that. For example, we did move some of that programming on Snug Drive, which we have a great innovation. It’s the softest diaper in the value tier. Our new generation two core, which provides better protection and more comfort. It was named the number one diaper with good housekeeping, disposable diaper, great consumer rating. So we wanted to get that in the hands of consumers to drive trial.

We had other innovations as well and we did that in the fourth quarter and those performed relatively well. I would say just last thing on the promo dynamic before I move on is our in market promotional activity for the year remains below the category and 2019 levels. And again, we expect that to flow with our innovation. The other two dynamics I’ll hit briefly. One is Club Mix. You know, that’s just the consumer moving channels and that has come through a little bit in our pricing because they’re buying larger pack sizes at a lower price per unit.

So you see more volume but a little bit of a drag on the pricing piece there. And again, that’s our full philosophy of just serving consumers in the channel that they want to shop in. And then the last thing is we did talk about several times making strategic investments in pack sizes and choices to better align our good, better, best pricing value ladders across the channels, especially ahead of some of the innovation we have coming. And we had made some choices to sharpen the competitiveness of our value proposition. So over the long term we’re going to stay focused on maintaining PNOC’s discipline while growing volume and mixed profitably.

And that will be led by innovation and the focus on category development. And we have a great lineup in 26 to that end. So that’s kind of the direction we’re headed and we’re excited about it.

Lauren Lieberman

Great, thanks so much.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Nick Modi from ORBC Capital Markets. Nick, your line is live.

Nik Modi

Yeah, thank you. Good morning everyone. I just like a quick clarification. I didn’t see anything in the release regarding any updates on closing timing or regulatory filing timing. So if you provide any clarity on that, that would be helpful. But my main question is really just the state of the U.S. diaper category, especially the dynamics at play at costco you know, given Proctor is now entering after decades of exclusivity for Huggies. So if you provide any kind of thoughts on that, is that kind of embedded in your outlook, you know, how are you going, et cetera, et cetera.

Thank you.

Mike Hsu

Okay. Morning, Nick. Maybe I’ll ask Russ. Maybe you can talk about the U.S. diaper category and then I’ll come back, Nick and answer your questions on the acquisition.

Russ Torres

Yeah, sure. Hey Nick, how you doing? In terms of diapers again, we’re growing by driving innovation and brand building that grows the category and cascading that to all tiers. And that model has worked well for us around the world and the United States. Before I get to the US I’ll just hit a couple highlights around the world in the fourth quarter we grew share in many of our key markets including China up 210 basis points, Korea up 30 basis points, Brazil up 50 basis points, Indonesia up 230 basis points. So that strategy that we’re executing is working in North America as well.

In the fourth quarter we grew share about 100 basis points and we’ve grown share in diapers two years in a row. But just with respect to the club situation, the way we look at it is we’re really focused on providing consumers with differentiated brand value propositions no matter what channel they’re shopping in. And we’re widely available, so is our competition. However, we did see a major club player has moved away from branded exclusivity in our category and so we’ll see partial loss of diapers and pull ups distribution in the North America club. And that’ll start in the first quarter here.

And this is incorporated to your question in our full year expectation of growing as Nelson mentioned in line, or to better than weighted average category growth. So we’re focused on continuing to execute the strategy and there might be some ebbs and flows over time but we’re very confident in the long term we’re going to continue to move in the right direction as our current performance indicates.

Mike Hsu

And. Okay, thanks Russell. Go ahead Nelson.

Nelson Urdaneta

Sorry, just to clarify for what’s built into the forecast, Nick, we as Russ mentioned, we expect this distribution loss to commence in Q1. It is reflected in our full year outlook and it’s a headwind of around 60 basis points for the full year.

Mike Hsu

Okay. And then Nick, just regard to the Ken View process, you know we the shareholder vote is on is on the 29th this Thursday. You know, I will tell you, you know, I expect the vote to reflect the very positive feedback we’ve heard from our investors. And so through yesterday, pretty good chunk of shareholders have already voted and it’s well in, you know, in excess of 90% in favor. So we feel good about that. And then with regard to timing of close, you know, we still expect, you know, somewhere in the back half. I think the regulatory process is on track and consistent with our initial expectations.

And maybe you didn’t ask this part, but I will tell you our IFP transaction remains on track for a mid year closing this year, still subject to regulatory approvals. And then we worked closely with CANVU to file. Shortly after announcing the transaction, submitted the US Antitrust filing and will complete filing all applicable international jurisdictions by early February. And so again, I think we’re on track to close in the second half of this year.

operator

Excellent. Thank you. I’ll pass it on.

Mike Hsu

All right. Thank you, Nick.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Steve Powers from Deutsche Bank. Steve, your line is live.

Steve Powers

Great. Good morning everybody. Thank you. Maybe just to round out the top line conversation a bit, just maybe a little bit more precision around how you expect the overall 2% category growth to shake out North America versus Rest of World. And I guess in light of the 4Q dip that you noted and the overall choppiness we’ve seen, do you see that 2% backdrop existing pretty steadily in 26, I guess inclusive of the first quarter, or are you assuming that it takes more time to ramp? That’d be helpful. And if I could, I know I’m supposed to have one question, but I’m going to try to get two.

Nelson, in the prepared remarks you talked about visibility and achieving that 40% future adjusted gross margin before the end of the decade. I’m assuming that’s that target existed before kennview, so it’s independent of kenview contributions. I guess maybe just an update on how are you seeing the primary drivers shaking out there and then just how much progress roundabout you think you might be able to make in 26. Thanks very much.

Mike Hsu

Okay, thanks, Steve. Hey, let me just open with maybe just an overall comment on the sales outlook and then Nelson kind of will give you a little more texture on the pacing then we can hit the margin thing. Steve. But one, I just wanted to kind of emphasize that our volume momentum and I think Bonnie noted that the volumes were in our minds performing well. The volume momentum really this year in 20 or last year in 25 really reflects, I think the compelling offering that we have. And as I mentioned earlier, we’re even more bullish on our innovation and marketing initiatives this year.

And so I think our focus on strengthening the value propositions at every tier has been very, very important. We have a very strong pipeline coming this year and so we expect a meaningful step up as we get through the year to our new launches. And so we feel very good about the plan for this year. But I’ll let Nelson, you may want to comment a little bit more on the pacing.

Nelson Urdaneta

Sure, Mike. So a few things, Steve, and I’ll unpack a little bit Q4. But to start with, you know, for 2026, as Mike mentioned in his prepared remarks, I mean we have a very strong, and I’d say, you know, the strongest pipeline of innovation and activation program that we’ve had in quite a few years across all of our markets. And our plan is to continue to build the momentum on volume plus mixed led growth that we saw play out in 2024 with an acceleration in 2025. Now, as you rightfully mentioned, for the fourth quarter of 2025, on the surface, weighted global average category growth dropped to around 0.6%.

And that compares to about 2% that we were staring at right around between Q1 and Q3 of last year. And there were a few discrete factors that weighed on this drop, particularly in North America. And as you know, we have the impact in 24 of Hurricane Helene, the port strikes panic related buy in. And to a lesser extent in 2025, there was a little bit of pantry loading in North America, diapers in Q3 of 20. So that all kind of played out into the weighted average growth of 0.6% for the category in the last quarter.

For the full year, as I mentioned, category grew weighted right around 2%. And our categories have remained resilient. As we think about the last four weeks data that we’ve got, we’re hovering around that 2%. So we think that a good starting point for weighted average category growth for the start of the year is around that level. We are maintaining our disciplined approach to growing the categories and the brands through the innovation, the differentiation. And we expect both North America and our international personal care business to grow in line or ahead of the categories for the full year.

In terms of net sales, we expect both the first half and the second half to be roughly 50 50. So pretty even. But when you look at the growth in terms of quarterly pacing, we are planning for the innovation and the brand support to ramp up as we Progress through the first quarter and then into Q2 and the balance of the year. So I would expect as we built our outlook to see organic Growth to accelerate in the back half versus the first half of the year as it relates to the visibility of achieving the 40% before the end of the decade.

And you know, the drivers and the progress. A couple of things. I mean, as we stated, margin progression is not going to be linear quarterly or year on year. However, we’ve made very strong progress over the last two years. We took a little bit of a step back on gross margin in 2025, and that partly was impacted by one the inflationary elements that we were dealing with. As a reminder, we had around $200 million of input costs that we dealt with last year and that included the headwinds which were unexpected related to tariffs. As we go into this year, though, we’re not expecting that.

I mean, we’re expecting costs actually to be largely flat. So that’s one. Secondly, we are expecting to deliver very strong productivity in the year, another year that will hover around 6% building on what we achieved in 2024 and 2025. So all in, we expect to expand margins, both gross and operating profit margins in the year in 2026, putting us well on pace to achieve our objectives of at least 40% before the end of the decade for gross margin and at least 18 to 20% in operating profit before 2030. So well on pace to deliver that. And again, that excludes any, you know, any favorability or impact as we carry out the integration of canview. Steve?

Steve Powers

Perfect. Thank you both very, very clear. Appreciate it.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Chris Carey from Wells Fargo Securities. Chris, your line is live.

Christopher Carey

Hi everybody. Hope you’re well. You gave some information just about the model from 2026 kind of through 2028 with phasing and obviously implied in there some medium term growth expectations as well. You also established some of these expectations in the S4. Can you just help reconcile or clarify whether there’s been any evolution in the expectations as of the S4 relative to where we are today? Maybe just because so much of this medium term CAGR is anchored to an acceleration in 2028. Just help us understand the, the visibility that you have and the confidence that you have that you can achieve those outcomes in a few years from now. Thank you.

Nelson Urdaneta

Sure. So from a modeling standpoint, let me walk you through what we had in the S4 and what we have for 2026 and to your point, our visibility and confidence in getting to our ambitions before the end of the decade. So firstly, a couple of things we’ve built to the outlook for this year. The momentum that we’ve got based on the innovation and all the activation plans that we’ve been building on through 2025 and what we have in place as we commence this year. There are two factors that are coming into the picture as we speak for the outlook for the year and they they’ve come up in the past couple of months.

The first one is we’ve had a bit of softer than anticipated fourth quarter in the demand in North America and enterprise markets and this resulted in a lower base of volumes and EBITDA for 2025 and that’s reflected in the outlook. The second bid is really around the partial loss of the diapers and training pants distribution in the North America Club Channel that we just talked about, both Ross and myself, which we are not able to fully offset in 2026. And as I mentioned, that’ll be a headwind of around 60 basis points of growth on the year that is reflected in our outlook and that of course will be a difference that you would see versus what we would have had in the S4.

That said, our ongoing business is well positioned to deliver results consistent with the long term algorithm that we laid out in March of 2024. And these two factors are reflected in the outlook. On the top line we based on all the innovation plans that we have, the commercial plans, we expect to deliver growth that’s at or above global weighted average category growth. Globally we are aiming for operating profit growth that’s at the higher end of our mid to high single digit range. And as we support a significant step up in new product activation across key markets in another year of gross productivity that will approach 6% of cost of goods sold and we will maintain our discipline on SGA savings that you’ve seen flow through in the last couple of years through our power and care transformation.

If you look at adjusted EPS, we expect to be in line with 2025 levels on a constant currency basis. Chris, and you know this will reflect two things. One, the underlying growth which will be consistent with our long term algorithm but there will be an offset and that’s because of the reduction in income from discontinued operations which we expect to be roughly half of what we saw in 2025 levels with a mid year projected close of the IFP transaction.

Mike Hsu

Got it. And then Chris, you know, I think, you know, you may not have access to specifically, but I would say from the CanView perspective, you know, I’ll tell you, you know, and we’ve been getting knee deep into the integration management process, you know, I would tell you we haven’t seen anything that would change our view on the potential of this, of this combination. You know, they’re going to be set to report the results on their usual timing, I think, which is early to mid February. And then if you looked at the S4 pretty hard, we did take a fairly or a somewhat more conservative view of their outlook and near midterm financial profile.

We plan to make pretty good investments into their brands and their portfolio and capabilities. And so we still see generational value creation opportunity by putting these two companies together. Our focus is on making sure that both companies have great earnings capacity over the long term.

Christopher Carey

Okay, thank you. Yep, keep going.

Russ Torres

Yeah, you have a question on the visibility? Yeah, you have the question on the visibility. And I’ll reiterate that we have strong visibility into our plans on the productivity front to achieve the margin expansion and fund the brand investments that we have for the following years as well as on the top line, our ability to grow at or ahead of the categories, largely driven by the very strong innovation pipeline that we’ve got for the next few years as well as our executional plans across the globe.

Christopher Carey

Okay, thank you both.

Mike Hsu

Alright, thanks Chris.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Mike Lavery from Piper Sandler. Mike, your line is live.

Michael Lavery

Thank you. Good morning. Just want to follow up a little. Bit I guess on Steve’s bonus question on the margins. Just would love to understand you called out the significant reinvestment that you’re expecting post deal. Just maybe how, you know, you said of course that it’s not linear but. Maybe how bumpy does it get? And we know some of the synergy pacing and how that plays out but you know, kind of just maybe how much more can you unpack the path. To 40% gross margins and 18% EBIT.

Mike Hsu

Yeah, well, hey Michael, thanks for the question. Just a comment. You know, I would say and I’m presuming you’re talking about, you know, kind of our standalone, you know, on that our path to 40, you know, you know, I think we’re overall we feel like we’re making strong progress. We have good, very good visibility into our path to the 40%, an 18 to 20% APRs aspiration by 2030. In fact, I think we’re probably pacing slightly ahead of what we originally planned. Just to confirm or reiterate, Michael, these margin targets are milestones, not a destination. We expect to exceed that when we can.

Then you’ll note that the IFP transaction does create a one time impact in a bank, you know, and a better Business for both businesses longer term, you know, and we’ll update you on that as we get closer to close. But you know, again, I think, you know, we feel very good about our productivity delivery. We feel very good about the innovation that we have in the pipeline that’s enabling us to drive positive mix and premiumize at the top end of the category and then, and then grow volume by cascading, you know, those features down through, through the tiers. So I’ll pause there. I don’t know there’s anything else you want to click on there.

Michael Lavery

No, that’s really helpful. Yeah, thank you.

Mike Hsu

Okay, thanks, Michael.

operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Robert Moscow from TD Cowan. Robert, your line is live.

Robert Moskow

Hey, thanks for the question. Nelson. The argument for gross margin expanding this year I think reflects, hey, you had 200 million of input costs last year you didn’t expect and then it’s not going to happen this year. But if I look back at 25, I mean one of the was that pricing turned negative. The environment got a lot more competitive. You know, what’s to stop that from happening again in 2026? It seems like the environment continues to be really competitive. You know, you’re losing some distribution in Costco. You might have to take steps to defend your turf at other retailers. I mentioned the name of the club. I’m just speculating of course, but so you know, how much cushion do you have in the model in case, you know, it does get into that kind of environment again?

Nelson Urdaneta

Yeah. So a few things there are. First. Yeah. As you rightfully say, as you unpack, why we expect margins to expand. One, costs are projected to be neutral year on year versus two years in which we faced about $200 million of costs. Secondly, productivity, gross productivity is expected to be right around the 6% level which will be at the high end of our 5 to 6. And again another record productivity level for us in the year. And then on the pricing bid, I think it’s very important to go back to what we chatted early last year on what Russ mentioned. We made some strategic price back architecture and channel price investments, particularly in North America towards the end of Q4 of 2024.

So as you head into 2026, we’re going to be lapping largely that. So that is going to be something that again, based on what we’ve modeled and what we put together, that is one aspect that will be different as we go into the year. So that changes year on year and it’s reflected there, the channel mix and all that bid that will continue to play out to some extent, but that’s factored into the model, Rob, so hence why, you know, we, we do see a little bit of a difference between 25 and 26 from that end and why we’re, you know, at this stage, confident in our ability to expand margins in 2026 back to where we, you know, had modeled before.

Mike Hsu

And maybe Nelson, I’ll tack on Rob. You know, I think part of it is also philosophically we’re really not interested in renting share through promotion. And especially I think Russ mentioned it earlier in the call, which is it doesn’t make sense in a category where consumption is relatively stable or almost fixed in a category like fat tissue or diapers. And so what we’re really focused on, and I think we had this in our prepared remarks, is kind of having an operating model and a culture that’s driving this notion of the elusive virtuous cycle, which we think is delivering great results.

And that includes innovating at all rungs of good, better, best, especially the top end, and pulling it through the value tiers. And then as you’re kind of asking about making sure that we can invest for impact. And I think we’ve done a very good job of increasing our investment over the last several years, but also improving maybe the effectiveness of our advertising and our marketing. And for us, you know, we feel like that’s a much more powerful lever to pull than trade promotion. And so that’s kind of what we’ve been investing and we’re really seeing great results.

And I think that’s leading to. That’s been a driver of our last couple years of strong volume plus mix growth. And, you know, and we feel very well positioned for, you know, more volume and mix growth in 2026. At the same time, you know, to get this virtuous cycle, we have to have leading productivity, which we’re delivering. And so we’re really proud of. And so I think that’s our focus and that’s how we’re going to run the play in 26.

Robert Moskow

Yeah, I get it. I guess my question is, Nelson, you said that price realization was lower in 25 because of decisions you made in 4Q24. But from our modeling, the pricing was weaker than expected during the course of of 25 compared to the original guidance. Am I wrong or was a down year for pricing always part of the plan? It seems like it was weaker than you thought. That’s all I was asking.

Nelson Urdaneta

We always factored into the plan one, the pricing actions that we were going to take at the end of the quarter in 2024. And there’s always going to be a little bit of shift in programming, Rob, that plays into into the year and that comes up in actuals. But that was largely it. I mean, there will be a bit of move across channels as Russ referred to, but overall, based on what we’re planning, we wouldn’t see what we saw in 25 at this stage.

Mike Hsu

Keep in mind, I think Russ had mentioned earlier that and we talked about on last quarter’s call where because of competitive activity, we held back on some of our Q3 programming and we shifted it into Q4. So that would explain some of what you’re looking at on a sequential basis.

Robert Moskow

Thank you.

Christopher Jakubik

Great. If we could take one more question, that’d be great.

operator

And the final question today is coming from Edward Lewis from Rothschild and Company. Edward, your line is live.

Edward Lewis

Thanks very much, guys. Yes, I guess a quick one just looking at the international business. So good share gains, you note again and obviously a good end to the year there. And as I look at the results through nine months on the international gross margins, there’s around about a 7 percentage point gap between that and North America. So am I right in thinking that the international gross margin is a big opportunity? And what do you see as the drivers there?

Mike Hsu

Yeah. Hey, Ed, good to hear from you. Yes, international margins are an opportunity. It’s something we’re focused on improving. I’ll let Russ talk a little bit more about it. We feel very good about the progress we’re making in international, especially our focus markets.

Russ Torres

Yeah, I would say a few things. First, I do think that a key part to the equation for us growing is to meet consumer demand at every tier. And we’ve talked a lot about the good and the better, but the best is a big opportunity for us. And we’ve seen that where we’ve expanded margins in international geographies is developing that premium segment segment. And we believe that there’s very, very significant upside in that, especially in geographies where the consumer is still developing and GDP growth continues to allow people to have more money to spend. And so that’s one, I think the second thing is we’ve had no less of a focus on productivity internationally.

And we’ve come up with some really great ways through the wiring that we’ve executed to be able to leverage our global scale that we’ve got in markets like North America and China in other geographies to help drive costs down. And so that’s another big component. I would just note that we’ve been growing significantly and we’ve seen that sequentially unfold for us in the markets outside of North America and China, Brazil, diapers, organic growth, mid single digit South Korea, diapers, positive organic growth. Indonesia, positive organic growth, you know, gaining share in Australia. So in femcare and adult care.

So that’s another element to it is just the leverage that we’ll get as we continue to scale the business and looking forward to Kenji. We think that’s another really big opportunity potentially for us. So that’s kind of what I would say.

Mike Hsu

And then Ed, I’m excited about our share momentum. I mean we did see significant growth across IPC markets in 2025, just to give you a few examples. I mean overall our focus markets, our top six markets in IPC were up about weighted share 50 basis points. China was up 270 basis points on diapers. And then outside China, you know, femcare in Indonesia was up almost 200 basis points. Korea was up 60, Australia up 50, Brazil up 40. And so I think we’re making very good progress across the board. And then if you think About International in 26, you know, we expect to drive positive volume and mix led growth ahead of the category.

You know we are targeting weighted share growth again along by, you know, led by our strong, you know, innovation and premiumization and then expect, you know, operating profit dollar and margin gains reflecting the strong productivity and overhead management that we’re doing. So thanks for the question Ed.

operator

Thank you. And that does conclude our Q and A session for today. I will now hand the call back to Chris Jakubic for closing remarks.

Christopher Jakubik

Great. Well thanks everybody for joining us today. For analysts who have follow up questions, the investor relations team will be around all day to take them. So have a great day and again appreciate the interest.

operator

Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this please time. Thank you for your participation.