Q2 2021 Colgate-Palmolive Co Earnings Call
[music].
Please standby were about to begin.
Good day and welcome to today's Colgate Palmolive Company second quarter 'twenty 'twenty 1.
Earnings Conference call.
This call is being recorded and is being simple Simon Luk cast live at Www Dot Colgate Palmolive Dot com now for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Chief Investor Relations Officer, John Florsheim. Please go ahead John.
Thanks Eddie.
Good morning.
Welcome to our 2021 and second quarter earnings release Conference call. This is Jonathan <unk>, Chief Investor Relations Officer.
Today's conference call will include forward looking statements.
Actual results could differ materially from these statements. Please refer to the earnings press release, and our most recent filings with the SEC, including our 2020 annual.
Moving on form 10-K, and subsequent SEC filings all available on Colgate's website for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.
This conference call will also include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures, including those identified in table 8 and the line of the earnings press release, a full reconciliation.
Conciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings press release and is available on Colgate's website.
Joining me on the call. This morning are Noel Wallace, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and standard the Tula Chief Financial Officer.
I will provide commentary on our Q2 performance as well as our latest thoughts on 'twenty.
2021 guidance before turning it over to Noel to provide his thoughts on the current operating environment and how we will continue to deliver on our growth trajectory.
We will then open it up for Q&A as.
As usual, we request that you limit yourself to 1 question so that as many people as possible to ask a question.
If you have further.
You are welcome to reenter the queue.
As we reported results at the halfway point of 2021, we remain pleased but not satisfied with our performance. So far as we navigate through what can charitably be described as a complicated year.
For both the second quarter and on a year to date basis, we delivered growth in organ.
Quest sales net sales operating profit and net income.
This is despite difficult comparisons as we lap last year's strength in categories like liquid hand soap and dish soap.
We are also dealing with the impact of Covid restrictions in several markets economic and political uncertainty strong competitive activity and of course.
Significantly heightened raw material and logistics headwinds.
We expect that all of these factors will continue to impact our business through the second half of this year.
Because of that we remain focused on delivering impactful innovation, leveraging our revenue growth management capabilities to deliver on pricing and driving productivity up.
<unk> income statement.
All of these are crucial to deliver long term sustainable growth that will help us as we look to deliver TFR at the high end of our peer group.
We delivered 5% organic sales growth in the second quarter, which marked our 10th consecutive quarter delivering organic sales growth either in or above our targeted.
Range of 3% to 5%.
As we have discussed before the key to delivering against our long term targets is delivering balanced growth, which we did once again in the quarter by delivering both volume and pricing growth.
We delivered growth in both developed markets with 3% organic sales growth in emerging markets, which delivered 7% organic sale.
And down we delivered organic sales growth in every division, but in North America.
Our largest category oral care delivered organic sales growth of nearly 10% with.
With organic sales growth across toothpaste manual toothbrushes, and electric toothbrushes and organic sales growth in every division.
Innovation continues to be a vital.
Contributor to our oral care business as we benefit from new products across all of our divisions.
Products like co by Colgate, Colgate Elixir toothpaste, and Colgate enzyme whitening toothpaste are all delivering consumer desired benefits and premium I think our portfolio.
Pet nutrition delivered organic sales growth of 15%.
Sales for personal care and home care declined on an organic sales basis year over year in the quarter as expected, but net sales remain above 2019 levels.
Net sales increased 9.5% in the quarter, which was our highest net sales increase in almost 10 years.
Foreign exchange was a 4.5% benefit to net sales as we lapped.
With last year's Covid driven strength in the dollar.
After strong gross margin performance in 2020 and in Q1, our gross margin declined in the second quarter due to the rapid acceleration of raw material costs across our business and the lapping of lower promotional levels in Q2.2020.
We took additional pricing in the second.
Second quarter, which will help offset raw material costs in the second half of the year and we will continue to layer in additional pricing where possible.
We expect raw material cost to remain elevated throughout 2021, but we do expect some sequential lessening of inflation as we get into the fourth quarter.
Our efforts on premium innovation and pricing.
Along with our focus on productivity like our funding the growth initiatives will also help us as we look to improve our gross margin performance.
In the second quarter, our gross profit margin was 60.0%, which was down 80 basis points year over year on both a GAAP basis, Andrew based business basis.
Year to.
<unk> gross margin of 64% down 10 basis points.
That is on a GAAP and base business basis.
For the second quarter pricing was 90 basis points favorable to gross margin less than in the first quarter as we lapped lower promotional spending in the year ago period, when many of our markets reacted to COVID-19 restrictions.
By pulling back on promotional activity.
Raw materials were a 370 basis point headwind as we continue to see significant pressure from resins.
It's an oil and agriculture related costs and many other materials. This.
This includes a slightly favorable transactional impact from foreign exchange.
Productivity.
With the 200 basis point benefit.
Our SG&A was up 100 basis points as a percent of sales for the second quarter on both a GAAP and base business basis.
This was primarily driven by an increase in logistics costs and also by a 30 basis point increase in advertising to sales.
Excluding advertising and logistics our SG&A.
<unk> ratio declined year over year, as our net sales growth and savings programs drove leverage on our overheads.
For the second quarter on a GAAP basis, our operating profit was up 5.5% year over year.
While it was up 2.5% on a base business basis.
Our EPS was up 12% on a GAAP basis.
And up 8% on a base business basis.
Our free cash flow was down year over year in the quarter as we continued to lap very strong working capital performance in the year ago period.
As we discussed previously our capital expenditures are also up year over year, as we invest behind growth productivity.
And our sustainability strategy.
A few comments on divisional performance.
North America net sales declined 4% in the second quarter with organic sales down 4.5% and a modest benefit from foreign exchange.
<unk> were down 8.5% in the quarter, driven by home care and personal care, which saw strong growth in the year ago period, driven by Covid related.
Demand pricing across home care and personal care was positive as we work to offset higher raw material costs.
Oral care organic sales grew mid single digits, driven by innovation and pricing.
I mentioned co by Colgate before which is helping us further expand into the beauty and direct to consumer channels.
We are pleased with the initial performance.
Okay keep manual toothbrush.
Within aluminum handle and by using our replaceable heads consumers can use 80% less plastic compared to similarly sized Colgate toothbrushes.
We're also excited about our Tom's of Maine, relaunch, which is bringing new graphics and advertising to a historic natural segment brand.
Our logistics issues that we discussed on our first quarter call continued to negatively impact our promotional timing that service levels have improved and we expect our promotional cadence will normalize as we go through the third quarter.
Latin America net sales were up 12, 5% with 8.5% organic sales growth and a 400 basis point benefit from foreign exchange.
All 3 categories delivered organic sales growth in the quarter with oral care organic sales growth in the high teens.
Brazil, and Mexico, both grew organic and net sales double digits in the quarter.
Our strong innovation performance was led by core innovation behind Colgate total reinforced guns in Mexico.
Which apparently sounds much better in Spanish.
Once you get used in English and several charcoal variants in Brazil.
Volume was plus 2.5% in the quarter, despite a sizable negative impact due to political unrest in Colombia, our third largest market in Latin America.
We believe this disruption, which negatively impacted our distribution network for some time is large.
Management behind Us.
But political disruption will remain a risk not just in Colombia, but in several markets.
Pricing was up 6%, despite lapping lower promotional spending in Q2.2020 as well as some incremental pricing in the year ago period, as we look to offset foreign exchange.
Europe net sales grew 15.
Largely defense in the quarter organic.
Organic sales grew 5% driven by mid teens growth in oral care offset by declines in personal and home care as we lap COVID-19 related demand in the year ago period.
Volume grew 7% in the quarter offset by a 2% decline in pricing as we lapped lower promotions in the year ago period as store.
Traffic declined in Q2.2020 due to Covid restrictions.
I mentioned Colgate Elixir toothpaste before and we're very excited about this truly differentiated product.
We designed it with more of a beauty aesthetic, including skincare inspired ingredients, a unique clear recyclable bottle and liquid glide technology.
<unk> that allows the pace to lead the bottle, leaving no messy tube or cap.
This product began rolling out across the division in Q2 with further launches this quarter.
We delivered 7.5% net sales and 1% organic sales growth in Asia Pacific This quarter.
With organic growth in oral care, partially offset by a decline in homecare.
Their volume growth of 3.5% was partially offset by negative pricing as we cycled lower promotional levels than a year ago period, given COVID-19 related lockdowns across the region.
With the biggest impact coming on our South Pacific business.
We have additional pricing planned in the second half across the division to offset raw material cost completion.
Volume growth was led by India. Despite the impact of Covid related disruption in May and Thailand, driven by Naturals innovation and the Colgate that choppy and Colgate <unk> lines as we lapped COVID-19 related disruptions in the year ago period.
Our volume in China declined on growth on the Colgate business, which.
And offset by weakness in sales for our Holly in Haynesville joint venture, which is primarily related to inventory reductions in our distributor network.
Africa Eurasia continued its strong performance trend in the third quarter with net sales growth of 15, 5%.
As we delivered strong organic sales growth throughout the division once.
Again volume grew 9.5% in the quarter, while pricing was up 3.5%.
Foreign exchange was a 2.5% benefit in the quarter.
Oral care delivered high teens organic sales growth and we are re launching several of our naturals businesses with new packaging and flavors.
Bill strong growth continued.
In the second quarter with 18% net sales growth and 15% organic sales growth.
Both developed and emerging markets delivered 10% volume growth as our increased investment around the globe is driving this highly differentiated brands.
In particular, we are seeing good results from our Hills Master brand campaign to end pet obesity as well.
As our new campaign for hills that essentials, our vet distributed wellness product in Europe.
And now for guidance.
We still expect organic sales growth to be within our 3% to 5% long term target range.
There is no meaningful change in our category expectations at this point.
The categories that benefited from Covid related demand are behaving.
In line with our expectations with sales below 2020 levels, but ahead of 2019 levels.
Please note that given the widespread COVID-19 outbreaks and many of our markets, we could still see an impact from government actions to stem the spread of Covid and other disruptions related to Covid and this was not in our guidance.
Using current.
Inland rates, we expect foreign exchange to be a low single digit benefit for the year, although slightly less favorable than when we gave guidance in April.
All in we still expect net sales to be up 4% to 7%.
We have reduced our gross margin guidance for the year and we now expect gross margin to be down year over year for the full year on both.
The GAAP and base business basis, given the additional cost inflation, we are seeing.
We expect the gross margin percentage to improve sequentially in the second half, which would leave us down modestly for the year.
As I mentioned above we are taking many steps to mitigate the impact of these costs, including additional pricing.
<unk> by optimizing trade spending accelerating FTE were available and many others.
Advertising is still expected to be up on both a dollar and a percentage of sales basis.
Logistics will continue to be a headwind as costs have also have risen faster than anticipated, particularly in the U S.
We still expect these costs to moderate somewhat as we go through the balance of the year.
Our tax rate is now expected to be between 23% and 24% per the year on.
On both a GAAP and base business basis.
On a GAAP basis, we still expect earnings per share growth in the low to mid single digits, but most likely towards the lower.
End of that range.
On a base business basis, we continue to expect earnings per share growth in the mid to high single digits.
We would expect to land at the lower end of that range.
And with that I'll turn it over to Noel Thanks, Sean and good morning, everyone. I Hope you are all safe and well this morning.
So the old.
Key message I want to leave with you today is that our strategy to reaccelerate profitable growth by focusing on our core <unk>.
Adjacencies all over the world New channels and markets is really working as you would like to say nothing moves in a straight line, but we now have 10 straight quarters of organic sales growth at or above our long term.
<unk> range year to date, we are at the high end of the range despite difficult comparisons and continued volatility in the business, we're making good progress on our journey, but we still have more work to do.
And as I look back at my comments to you over the past 18 months that we've been dealing with the implications of Covid, There's 1 consistent theme.
Over I keep coming back to managing through this crisis with an eye on the future. This.
This is still very appropriate theme, although obviously some of the elements have changed the prevalence of the vaccine in many developed markets gives us a sense of guarded optimism, but we've highlighted that many emerging markets, which represent almost half of our revenue.
The availability of the vaccine remains a very.
Very low case rates are high and governments continue to put in restrictions to help stop the spread of the virus.
We remain hopeful that we will get to a post COVID-19 sooner rather than later, but we're not there yet.
We will continue to manage to the retail and supply.
Hi chain disruptions changes in consumer behavior, and government actions to stem the spread of the virus all while doing our best to protect the health and safety of our employees, which remains our number 1 priority.
But there are changing headwinds as well last year, we were faced with adverse foreign exchange movements heightened consumer and customer.
Demand supply chain volatility and uncertainty for our customers about changing business models and retail environments.
This year, we're faced with unprecedented cost increases from raw materials like resin fats and oils and many others logistic networks are taxed whether it's the trucking and warehousing here in the U S where ocean.
<unk> freight coming from Asia to the rest of the world and we're seeing some political disruption in markets like Colombia and Myanmar.
So 18 months into the Covid many of the challenges are the same.
Somewhat change, but our approach remains we will manage through the crisis with an eye on the future and so far we feel we've done.
Good job.
But we know the markets look forward at our potential not backwards at our achievements.
We know that to deliver top tier tsi, we need to.
Balanced organic sales growth, both volume and pricing all 4 of our categories and across all of our divisions. We've talked to you a lot about our changes in strategy.
That will enable us to continue delivering this balanced growth.
First is our focus on breakthrough and transformational innovation.
John discussed many of these in his commentary and this improved innovation as a direct result of the changes that patent I discussed during our Cagny presentation.
Our emphasis on faster growing channels and markets.
<unk> continues to pay off through growth in E Commerce direct to consumer Discounters club stores and pharmacies were taking formerly regional brands like Tom's of Maine, Hello, Hello mix at Marigold, and launching them in select markets and channels to take the advantage of their strong brand equities and ongoing consumer trends.
We're supporting these average with increased focus on our digital media and emerging data analytical capabilities.
But we have to deliver gross margin expansion to fund our brand investment while we know while we now expect gross margin to be down modestly for 2021. It comes on the heels of strong gross margin expansion in 2000.
<unk> 'twenty and in the face of unprecedented increases in raw material prices.
We will continue to leverage our robust revenue growth management program and drive productivity. So we can return to gross margin expansion. We have made progress in our journey to improve our mix, but we have further upside potential on this given the benefits we provide to consumers.
And the fact that our brands under index in pricing relative to the category across many geographies.
We're working to accelerate our productivity programs like funding the growth wherever possible to try and create additional offsets.
All of this should help us in our drive to return to gross margin expansion.
And while the raw material.
<unk> is obviously negative negatively impacting our gross margin performance. This year, we're optimistic that this raw material inflation could drive an improvement in emerging market fundamentals.
Again, we need to first get through the difficulties surrounding COVID-19, but on the back of our continued rebound in emerging market organic sales growth, particularly in Latin America.
We have some optimism that we could see some additional GDP growth and therefore higher category growth on the back end of these move this movement in commodities.
We are seeing some of the emerging market currency stabilized for the first time in what seems like several years and are optimistic this may be a first step.
And since our last call we have released our 2020.
Sustainability strategy. This comprehensive plan highlights the actions, we're taking around climate plastics sourcing diversity equity and inclusion and all of our elder areas that are vital to the future not only of our company, but our communities and our planet and with that I will open it up to your questions.
Thank you.
I'd like to ask a question you may signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad, if you're using a speaker phone. Please make sure. Your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again star 1 for questions well take our first question from Peter Grom with UBS.
Hey, good morning, everyone.
So I just wanted to ask around Latin America in the quarter I know, it's not all the same category and country exposure, but the read through from a lot of other companies that have reported thus far was that the region was really strong with most being better performance sequentially. So I know you mentioned, Colombia. So is there any.
Any way to quantify how much of a headwind do you think the disruptions their cogs in the quarter and then maybe just more broadly can you provide an update on your performance versus the category in the region.
How you are thinking about growth in the back half of the year just kind of on the heels of your positive GDP commentary there no.
Sure. Thanks, Peter overall.
We're really really happy with Latin America, you mentioned that obviously, we saw significant headwinds from the Columbia disruption.
Which in many respects took almost a month of sales out of that out of that specific country and despite that we obviously still delivered very strong top line growth. If you look at our 2 key markets.
Mexico, and Brazil, both delivering double digit growth.
In the quarter, you have seen now Brazil deliver 4 consecutive quarters of double digit growth. So obviously the market seems to be returning despite the fact that we're definitely not out of the woods relative to COVID-19, but we think as vaccinations improve.
Overall, particularly in those markets that will continue to help categories categories, you up on the year, which is good. Despite the fact that we still see limited mobility, we still see some disruptions in particularly the downgrade around how retail environments are behaving, but overall the categories are up which is good we had strong innovation.
<unk> quarter, we had some good innovation on our core business, Colgate total, which John mentioned, which is driving good share growth.
Just a little bit of the transactional couponing and deep discounting some of those markets overall, we've lost a little bit of a promotional share, but our baseline shares look good and the innovation process.
The plans we have in place for the back half are strong as well likewise on pricing we've always been.
A strong driver of pricing in those markets. We continue to obviously see a lot of headwinds on commodity prices, particularly on tallow prices coming out of Brazil, and we're ramping up for obviously, a strong back half relative to how we see.
And then the evolving and obviously continuing to drive the volume in the quarter. So overall I think we're pleased despite the fact that Colombia was a significant headwind to the quarter bear in mind, if you look at the overall.
Latin America that region continues to perform exceptionally well on balance 10.310.
Pricing in the fourth quarter, 95% in the first and <unk> 8 and a half now so again I think despite the headwinds good consistent growth.
Thank you we'll take our next question from Rob <unk> with Evercore.
Great. Thank you very much.
I'm wondering if you could.
Go around the world and talk a little bit about your actual pricing power I think we all understand.
Less promos and that was an effect on our reported pricing in Europe, and Asia, obviously theres mix effects.
But if we kind of clear through all of that can you talk about.
6 actual headline pricing that you got in the quarter or that you expect to get later in the year and to what extent you are able to do that given our.
Disposable income in the various markets and competitive activity. Thank you.
Sure Rob Thank you.
So let me start macro obvious.
If you look at developing markets versus developed.
Developing evolve as you move pricing a little faster than the developed world and when I say developed I'm, referring to Europe and the U S.
We've seen good pricing movements in Latin America, the pricing movements in Africa.
And we've seen that competition likewise.
She knows region, followed similarly in Asia, John mentioned in the upfront comments that we took some pricing obviously in the first quarter, we were lapping promotions from the second quarter last year, although we have pricing planned quite aggressively in the back half across the Asia Asia Asia region. If you take the developed world.
U S has been a little slow in terms of the market I think everyone is focusing on promotions and couponing to drive pricing, we haven't seen a lot of list price changes in North America, yet and I would say that particularly holds true for.
For Europe as well our strategy continues to be as we've outlined very.
<unk> disciplined approach to revenue growth management, we're taking list pricing, where we see the opportunity we're optimizing our promotional spend we're looking at price pack architecture. We're looking at all the levers within <unk> and revenue growth management to drive pricing overall. The other point is as you've heard we're very focused on premium innovation we continue.
Under index as I've mentioned, and that's a real opportunity for us to drive our overall gross margin percent in dollars as we look at the back half of the year. So I think the headline as pricing is going to have to come up in the back half everyone is faced with the same challenges and we anticipate that as we move into the back half, we'll see a little bit better environment around.
Developed markets and continued to focus on our revenue growth management discipline across the world to do that with.
Thank you we'll take our next question from co.
Oh, gosh rubella with credit Suisse.
Hi, Thank you good morning, everybody.
Quick questions on local competition it wasn't really that long ago, we were talking about.
Market share gains from local competition in a very in a variety of your kind of major markets can you maybe talk about how that's evolved through the pandemic what position we're in you're in now.
Particularly maybe as it relates to.
Our Cushing couponing promo right at a time where it.
It's necessary to push some pricing through the market because of inflation.
Sure Yeah. Thanks for the question.
We talked about it I think it throughout 2020, and perhaps a touch on that a bit in the first quarter.
The strength of.
<unk> and the efficacy of our brands has certainly brought consumers back into the.
The mainstream so to speak I mean, a lot of the local brands.
<unk> to the credibility they had in the market, which was questionable we saw consumers returning to big brands and certainly trusted brands in the market and that was very prevalent.
Our broker in categories like personal care like home care like pet nutrition as.
As well as oral care quite frankly, and so that certainly has benefited us in terms of how we've seen the categories evolve and I think that will continue as particularly given the.
The overarching issues around COVID-19 around the world.
And numbers are still looking for big trusted efficacious brands and we expect that to continue as we move through the balance of the year.
Ill comment on China, if I could add something to that what I would say is if you look at the success of the local brands over the last.
5 or 6 years, it's been a lot of undifferentiated benefits.
Consumer naturals the way Naturals is expressed in a number of different markets.
Different type of packaging different media strategies and mostly at premium prices. So as I think as you look at our innovation strategy that Noel talked about and you look at the type of innovation, we are putting out whether its elixir in Europe or whether it's the naturals relaunch and after.
Hey, Jeff.
We have the ability to compete more effectively.
With some of these local brands and we can drive that premium innovation at the same time.
Thank you we'll take our next question from Andrea Teixeira with Jpmorgan.
Hey, good morning, everyone.
You're right, it's actually co Georgetown long Island Crown Dray, hi, Thanks for taking the question.
So just at a high level could you maybe talk a little bit more about some of the specific actions that you plan to take to help reverse some of those share losses, particularly in the U S really.
Really in the core toothpaste and dish detergent category.
Sure.
Obviously.
Everyone in North America performance was below our expectations, we had a lot of factors driving that obviously the impact of logistics challenges that we alluded to in the <unk> in the first quarter. We continued to have some case bill issues in the second quarter, which obviously had an impact on our promotional.
Our ability.
<unk> put promotions in the market and obviously therefore share.
Were working those behind us and as we move into the back half those will be ideally gone.
So we expect some of that to come back we pushed a lot of the premium <unk> net market has become highly competitive.
Saw increased activity in promotion and couponing.
In the second quarter, we have adjusted our plans for the back half of the year and our guidance reflects those plans for North America.
Likewise in the dish business, we saw similar promotional activity, we have adjusted our promotional plans for the back half so by and large we saw obviously some logistics challenge some competitive activity.
Obviously some of the comparisons that we had last year dealing with elevated categories.
She softening the dish liquid and liquid hand soap category in the second quarter, but we anticipate as we move through the back half things will settle down and we have strong innovation and promotion plans to rebuild the North America shares.
Thank you we'll take our next question from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.
Yeah.
Hi, Thanks, so much for the question.
I had a question specifically on China.
Im conscious the margins were better in APAC and the rest of the world.
<unk> so on our pullback in marketing spending with China declining can you just provide any additional perspective on what youre seeing in that market and maybe by category in the.
The rationale behind me.
The marketing and how you see that going forward sure.
So as John.
Alluded to.
In his comments, we did see some weakness in the China business from our holiday and Hazel partner.
That was specifically driven by that's a business that's heavily driven down trade, we have very strong distribution in CPE cities and as we've seen E. Commerce continued to grow our distributor network has been cost.
<unk> on managing inventories as we've seen the brick and mortar categories fundamentally flat not growing so far in the first half of the year as E. Commerce will potentially continue to accelerate in those inventories get drawn down we expect that will sort its way through in the back half of the year.
Importantly, I think we're seeing terrific growth on our e-commerce business as we've talked about over the last couple of quarters in fact, our Colgate franchise and our Darlie franchise with 2 of the 3 fastest growing brands and e-commerce.
Retail environment in the quarter, and obviously up significantly.
Year is where we were in the first quarter from a share standpoint, which is really nice to see that's driven behind a lot of good premium innovation that we've had in the quarter. The miracle repair continues to do well, we've launched a series of premium enzyme toothpaste as well so that continues to perform well and the advertising is there in the back half to continue to grow that.
Versus as we as we.
Go out that go out the year. So we're comfortable with where we are from an advertising standpoint, obviously, the comps versus a quarter last year, where we had.
Drawn down a bit of our advertising, we saw a little bit of elevation in Asia in the second quarter a good plans in the back half to continue to drive share.
Business, we will take our next question from Mark Astrachan with Stifel.
Hey, everyone. Good morning, this is actually Chris arms on for Mark.
Just wanted to talk a little a little bit about Hill's growth, obviously very good.
Maybe on the growth if you could parse out how much is.
Share gains versus just elevated category growth.
Can you kind of talk also about growth by geography.
And then also the growth from kind of new from expansion into new markets versus existing markets.
Sure, Chris, Yes, Oliver I'll listen Hills had another fantastic quarter.
15%, Comping, obviously, a really strong quarter last year, where we did double digit growth as well. So we're hitting on all cylinders on that business growth is across the world. We had all of our regions up with exception of Japan.
Market share is up across the board typically and where.
While we are gaining market share is namely the U S, which is our largest market as you know we saw good share growth across most retail environments. Both on the base business. The science day has been as well as the prescription diet business. That's behind our continued focus on our strategy, which is to core renovation premium innovation new channel.
In this case continued to grow.
Mine as well as farm and feed and obviously, you're continuing to see an increase in the prescription diet business, which is more and more.
Pet owners return to <unk>, we see the benefit of that coming through as well so across the board very strong growth and we.
<unk> new to obviously invest for growth in that business and that continues to be the strategy moving into the back half of this year.
That will conclude our question and answer session. At this time I would like to turn the call back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks.
No. Thank you obviously.
Obviously, an extremely volatile quarter, but again I think we're continuing to execute our strategy as we've talked about for the last couple of years.
Some real opportunities ahead, and some challenges that we'll face as we have in the past and so I simply want to extend my thanks to all the Colgate people listening for their incredible.
Resilience during these difficult times and look forward to a good back half for the company. Thank you.
That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.
Okay.
Okay.