Procter & Gamble's Tide can be seen on display at a Wal-Mart store in Chicago, January 24, 2012.
Procter & Gamble Co.'s quarterly profit plunged 49 per cent, as the world's largest household products maker wrote down the value of its appliance and salon professional products businesses, and it said this year's profit would come in lower than previously expected due to the strong dollar.
Excluding charges, core earnings per share fell 3 per cent to $1.10, as sales growth and cost cuts were not enough to offset double-digit increases in commodity costs. The profit came in ahead of analysts' average forecast of $1.08 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
P&G earned $1.69-billion, or 57 cents per share, in the second quarter ended in December, down from $3.33-billion, or $1.11 per share, a year earlier.
Sales rose 4 per cent to $22.14-billion.
Organic sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions, asset sales and currency fluctuations, rose in each business unit and were up 4 per cent over all.
The volume of goods sold rose 1 per cent, with strong growth in developing markets overtaking a decline in volume in developed regions.
For the fiscal year ending in June, P&G forecast core earnings of $4.00 to $4.10 per share, down from a prior forecast of $4.15 to $4.33 per share due largely to foreign exchange.
It said fiscal 2012 sales should rise 3 per cent to 4 per cent on a net basis and 4 per cent to 5 per cent on an organic basis.