Edgewell Personal Care has credited ‘strong’ sun care, grooming and women’s shave category performances with a net sales increase of 5.5% in the second quarter of 2022, to reach US$547.7m.
However, the owner of shaving icons Wilkinson Sword, Schick and Bulldog has adjusted its full-year outlook with lower earnings per share in the face of projecting increases in cost inflation.
The company, which in November 2021 added subscription women’s shaving player Billie to its wet shave portfolio, saw Q2 organic net sales (which exclude the impact of the Billie acquisition and the negative translational impact from currency) grow 2.1% on the prior year period.
However, adjusted EPS for the quarter were $0.50, compared with $0.70 in the prior year period.
And full year EPS are slated to be in the range of $1.93 to $2.21, forecasted down from $2.23 to $2.51.
“In Q2, we delivered another quarter of solid growth reflecting strong demand for our products, continued market share gains and improving trends across many key brands, despite a higher-than-expected inflationary environment and significant supply chain disruptions,” said Rod Little, Edgewell's President and CEO.
“Looking ahead, we believe the supply chain disruptions are largely behind us, as evidenced by signs of a normalisation within our product flow and an improvement of our on-shelf position; however, we expect increased commodity and transportation-related cost headwinds to persist, which is reflected in our revised outlook.”
Category wise, the wet shave business was hit by a 39.9% ($18.3m) profit kicking, as commodity inflation and increased transportation and air freight costs were only partially offset by favourable pricing across all markets.
Its sun and skin care portfolio, which includes players like Bulldog, Jack Black and Hawaiian Tropic, fared much better, with net sales up 14.9% to $23.8m and segment profit increasing by $6.1m as inflationary cost pressures failed to drag down higher sales in sun care too far.