Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co. on Thursday reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter profit and sales, but if you think this means things are turning up for the struggling US consumer packaged goods sector, think again.
In the latest sign of the overall malaise in the sector, US unit sales of CPG items dipped 0.4% in the year ended Feb. 19, following a flat annual average growth rate between 2013 and 2016, according to a study of actual purchases from a consumer panel of 110 million US households by market research firm IRI. While sales, helped by price inflation, rose slightly by 0.5% to nearly $760 billion, that’s slower from an annual average of 1.8% increase in the three years through 2016, according to the IRI data released this week.
“People are buying fewer units,” said Susan Viamari, vice president of Thought Leadership for IRI, in an interview. “The industry has really struggled to find consistent growth since the (economic) downturn in 2008.”
In fact, annual industrywide CPG unit sales have been flat to negative since 2008, with total dollar sales gains since that time typically driven by factors such as price inflation, she said.
The industry’s struggle has been evident with major CPG giants from Procter & Gamble to Coca-Cola cutting costs to drive profit as they redesign products or acquire startup and other higher-growth labels to stoke sales. P&G, for instance, has cut its portfolio of about 170 brands to about 65 labels, which include Tide detergent, Pampers diapers, Gillette shaving products and high-end SK-II skincare line. Coca-Cola, which said in April it would cut 1,200 jobs, on Wednesday said it will rebrand its Coke Zero diet soda as Coke Zero Sugar to speak to consumers’ increased demand for what they perceive as healthier choices.
P&G CFO Jon Moeller said on the earnings call Thursday that the company’s US market growth slowed from over 2% last year to just above 1% this year and barely above flat in Q4. To gain share, the company has cut prices including on Gillette products in the US.
While Amazon's $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods is another sure sign of online’s growing share of the CPG pie, IRI data showed that the industry is still primarily a brick-and-mortar story despite what it described as “fast and furious” online sales growth: ecommerce represents only 8% of total industry sales, according to IRI.
Among the various shopping channels, there’s no one standout winner for the latest 12 months data. Supermarkets is the only format that showed an increase, and that was a bare 0.1%. And that increase came in spite of the fact that the number of CPG units bought in that channel dipped 0.3%. Among other channels, both CPG unit and dollar sales at retail segments from warehouse clubs and mass merchants to dollar stores and drugstores all dropped, IRI data showed.