Commenting on these results, Rakesh Kapoor, Chief Executive
Officer, said:
Interim Dividend raised by 7% to 60p.
"I am pleased that our strong focus on Health & Hygiene Powerbrands
is working and our improved company growth rates confirm that we are making
the right strategic choices. Our Health portfolio has had an excellent 1st
half, with Mucinex outperforming a very strong market with excellent
innovations such as Sinus-Max and the continued success of our Fast Max line.
Durex also delivered an excellent performance supported by creative digital
communications across the world, particularly in China which has now become
the largest Durex market in the world. In Hygiene, Dettol and Lysol are
performing strongly across the world, once again confirming the vast potential
of this franchise.
Our organizational focus on 16 Powermarkets, such as China, is
another critical element of our growth strategy and is enabling us to
sustainably outperform our markets. We have systematically increased our brand
investment in all our Areas and at the same time invested in enhancing our
capabilities to execute and win.
I am delighted with the progress we have made with our recent
strategic M&As. The excellent early results from Schiff confirm that we have
acquired very high quality brands in an exciting VMS category which we firmly
believe will deliver sustainable shareholder returns.
On Suboxone, we have always been aware of the challenges of
operating in a post generic environment. However, we continue to see strong
patient and doctor preference for film over tablets and we are very pleased
that the film has maintained its volume market share of 69%.
We continue to face challenging market conditions. Nonetheless
these strong H1 results, our sustained investment behind the equity of our
brands, together with excellent progress on the integration of our recent
acquisitions, give us confidence that we can achieve full year total revenue
growth1at the upper end of +5-6% range (ex RBP) while maintaining adjusted
operating margins."
