“We expect these headwinds to moderate or annualize over the coming periods.”

In context

“other Japanese brands in the market. SK-II sales in Greater China were down around 30% for the quarter. We have seen some month to month improvement in overall Greater China sales trends, though we expect it will be another quarter or two until we return to growth. Volume trends in some of the European Enterprise and Asia Pacific, Middle East Africa countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia have remained soft since the start of the heightened tensions in the Middle East. Also, shipments in Russia continue to decline, double digits given our reduced footprint and curtailed investments with consumers and retailers. Combined, the headwinds from Greater China and Asia, Middle East Africa markets were a 150 basis point impact on total company sales for the quarter. We expect these headwinds to moderate or annualize over the coming periods. Moving to the bottom line, core earnings per share were $1.52 up 11% versus prior year. On a currency neutral basis, core EPS increased 18%. Core gross margin increased 310 basis points and operating margin increased 90 basis points. Strong productivity improvement of 320 basis points enabled continued strong investment in superior products, packaging and consumer communication to drive market growth. Currency neutral core operating margin increased 220 basis points. Adjusted free cash flow productivity was 87%. We returned $3.3 billion of cash to share owners, approximately $2.3 billion in dividends and $1 billion in share repurchase. Over 3 quarters, more than $10 billion returned to shareowners in dividends and repurchases. Last week, we announced a 7% increase in our dividend, again r”