Haleon - H2 2025 (Q&A)

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Haleon Fiscal Year 2025 Results Question-and-Answer. My name is Sarah, and I'll be your moderator today. All lines will be muted during the call, with an opportunity for questions-and-answers. To ask the question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. I'd like to pass the conference over to our host, Jo Russell. Please go ahead.

Jo Russell (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Haleon's Full Year 2025 Results Q&A Conference Call. I'm Jo Russell, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined this morning by Brian McNamara, our Chief Executive Officer, and Dawn Allen, our Chief Financial Officer. Just to remind listeners on the call that in the discussions today, the company may make certain forward-looking statements, including those that refer to our estimates, plans, and expectations. Please refer to this morning's announcement and the company's U.K. and SEC filings for more details, including factors that could lead to actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We have posted today's presentation on the website this morning, along with a video running through the results in detail. Hopefully, you've all had the chance to see that ahead of this call.

With that, let's open the call for Q&A, and I'll hand back to the Operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Again, if you would like to ask the question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To remove your question, press star followed by two. As a reminder, if you are using speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking a question. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Our first question is from Guillaume Delmas with UBS. You may ask your question.

Guillaume Delmas (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much. Good morning, Brian, Dawn, and Jo. One question. My one question is on your organic sales growth guidance of 3%-5% for 2026. I mean, it does seem to signal some sequential acceleration relative to the 3% you posted last year. Wondering, what will be the main drivers behind this sequential improvement? I mean, is it predicated on category growth accelerating and/or your level of outperformance gaining further momentum? Related to this, Brian, you reiterated your medium-term ambition of 4%-6%. I guess, what underpins your confidence in the 4%-6% when you may be delivering a organic sales growth below the bottom end of that range for now two consecutive years? Thank you very much.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Thanks, Guillaume. Appreciate the question. Maybe let me take the 3%-5% guidance, and I'll go to medium-term view. If you take a step back and let's look at 2025, we grew 3%. That clearly was below what we were expecting, you know, when we were at Q3, based on the cold and flu season. The U.S. was down about 0.5%. APAC, and EMEA, LATAM grew mid-single digits. We did experience a market slowdown. A vast majority of that was obviously what we've talked about in the U.S. market and then the cold and flu category, which I mentioned. Remember, 70% of our cold and flu business is also outside the U.S. In that context, we did deliver competitive performance.

We outgrew the market overall, and 60% of the business gained to maintain share. Looking at 2026, we're now planning on material improvement in the market. Consumers are likely to stay cautious. We're absolutely focused on driving category growth. I'm confident we will continue and improve on our competitiveness, and that's through investment in A&P, a strong innovation plan, sharper commercial execution behind our new operating model. Listen, the U.S. will return to growth in 2026, and that's based on the progress we've had to date. We ended the year where we expected to, with inventories at the right place. Part of that is we did have softer cold and flu, but we had stronger oral health business, which helped, you know, offset that.

We also have plans in place that we know are gonna help us improve through the year. For instance, in Q2, we have a lot of key customers doing shelving resets. We're gaining distribution, we're gaining shelf placement. On the profit side, the productivity program continues to deliver. You saw the 220 basis points of gross margin improvement. We feel great about that. That, combined with the efficiencies coming from the operating model, will allow us to deliver high single-digit operating growth at constant currency and still invest in growth, still invest in A&P, R&D, and some key capabilities that we're continuing to build on. Now we step back and think the medium-term guidance.

I mean, you said it, the guidance doesn't necessarily mean we're gonna be outside the range, but obviously, part of the guidance is outside our medium-term range. I think it's an acknowledgment of the uncertain market we're dealing with. Based on what we know today, we'd expect to be in the middle of that range, based on what we know today. You also asked about the phasing. What we do know today is that Q1 cold and flu season is gonna be below a year ago. We're now almost two months into the quarter, and the results, we saw a spike towards the end of the year, and then we saw it, then we saw it come down after that. We're gonna be below a year ago, and that's not only in the U.S., it's outside the U.S.

My confidence. Listen, these are still attractive categories. I still believe there's huge potential. Everything we've talked about in the past, closing the incident treatment gap, success of our premiumization continuing, the low-income consumer opportunity, which we're still only at the beginning at. As we progress through 2026, I expect to see stronger performance in North America, as I said, and continued strength in emerging markets. We feel good about China, and I expect an acceleration in India. Actually, India, for us, is performing extremely well. As we continue to drive that productivity agenda, again, we will be able to continue to invest in the business, which, again, underpins my confidence in getting back to that 4%-6% growth.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Warren Ackerman from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Warren Ackerman (Managing Director and Head of European Consumer Staples Research)

Yeah. Good morning, Brian. It's Warren Ackerman here at Barclays. Outside of the numbers, Brian, could you talk about the new reorganization? You've got a new chief growth officer, chief transformation officer, new reporting structure, new hires in the U.S. other than Natalie, I've seen. Can you maybe sort of walk us through how that's going to be a growth unlock, and how you'll drive more volume growth in the U.S., more innovation? Anything you can say on sort of shelf resets and how the things are shaping up in the U.S. in what is clearly a tougher operating environment? Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Thanks, Warren, I think you captured it. This is first and foremost about unlocking growth and agility. If I think about the journey we've been on as a company, we're now three and a half years in. As a company, the strategy we laid out is very clear, is still an opportunity for us to streamline and simplify the way we work and drive a strategy to execution. As you said, we created this chief growth officer role that combines our category structure, our marketing effectiveness and capabilities, our business insights and analytics, strategy, and a new commercial excellence function. Then six operating units replacing our three regions. As you're aware, Latin America, India, and Middle East, Africa will now have a seat around the leadership team table. I think a couple of things.

It's one, on the commercial execution function that we've created centrally, you know, we're driving AI-driven tools behind net revenue management, net price action. We're gonna be able to drive this quicker and faster through the organization. This structure of CGO to six operating units is gonna allow us to really much quicker drive our category strategies through to execution, better leverage scale, better be able to move resources around, react to what I would say, as you said, a very uncertain environment.

As a result of it, we're taking a layer out of the organization, so we're talking about a flatter, leaner organization, and that leads to the GBP 175 million-GBP 200 million in gross savings we talked about, which gives us incredible flexibility, frankly, to invest in those growth opportunities and to invest in innovation and drive the capabilities. Your question on the U.S., specifically on the U.S. Yeah, well, first of all, overall, in the team, we did, as part of those changes, bring new members of the team. We got a fantastic leader in India, a fantastic leader in Latin America that came from outside the company, who know these markets extremely well. Our Middle East, Africa leader is now sitting on the leadership team, and she's an incredible talent.

In the U.S., as part of all this, Natalie made a number of changes in our category heads or category general managers. We have one of our top talents now on the OTC business. We brought external talent in oral health and in the wellness category, which is a combination of VMS and digestive health. I mentioned it a bit earlier, Warren, but we know that in Q2, we will see across a number of key customers, some wins on distribution and shelving across oral health, VMS and pain relief. That's locked. That's gonna happen in Q2, and we feel good about that commercial execution. We also feel good about the innovation.

The one thing I will say, it's broadly across the business, specifically in the U.S., oral health is doing incredibly well, and it really, you know, did better in Q4 than we expected, which again, helped us offset, land the U.S. where we wanted to, despite the tough, cold and flu season.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from David Hayes with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

David Hayes (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning, all. Just on emerging markets, again, there was a sequential slowdown in the fourth quarter. Just trying to dig a little bit deeper into whether the emerging is performing as you would expect it to be like it to be at the moment, and then which areas specifically maybe are not doing as well. I guess in that context, oral care continues to be amazing and impressive, obviously, and still in this difficult consumer environment. Is there something different about oral care and the dynamics there versus some of the other categories, ex respiratory, because of the cold and flu? It feels like, you know, oral care can ride the consumer dynamic, whereas the other brands can't.

Is there something you'd point to that says that, you know, this is what's gonna change as the consumer maybe picks up in the other areas? Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Thanks, David. Listen, I will take the oral care question linking to other categories, and I'll pass it to Dawn to talk about what we're seeing more broadly in emerging markets. First of all, we do feel really good, as you pointed around oral care, and as we've been talking about now for a while, the clinical range in Sensodyne has really resonated well with consumers, and it's beyond Clinical White, it's Clinical Repair, it's Clinical Enamel Strength. Beyond that, you know, we're seeing great progress in places like India with low-income consumer on oral health. parodontax is an amazing brand in gum health. We don't talk about it as much as Sensodyne. It's obviously not as big, but it's growing in the, you know, strong double-digit in the mid-teens.

We launched in China, this past year. It's still quite early in our ramp-up for distribution, but we couldn't be happier with the progress that we're seeing there. We feel great about oral health, and the oral health model is very, very clear. It's linked to the dental recommendation, it's linked to the innovation, and obviously we compete on the therapeutic side of the business. Listen, in the other categories, listen, when we talk about the impact of cold and flu, to be clear, we've talked about our cold and flu portfolio specifically, which are brands like Theraflu, and Robitussin, and Otrivin, which sit in that category.

There is also impacts in, across other areas like pain relief and some VMS and things like that tend not to be as much, but there does tend to be a little bit of that impact that happens, too. Fundamentally, I believe these are real strong categories that, you know, that as we move forward, we can move ahead. I think we're just radically differentiated versus the competition in oral health in a way that's very, very unique. We're talking about now, you know, over 10 years of kind of high single-digit to double-digit growth in Sensodyne, and we continue to see that continuing to hum. We're seeing good competitiveness in the other categories, but we're continuing to focus on innovation. Things like our 12-hour past launch on Voltaren in a number of European countries.

Otrivin Nasal Mist continues to do well. We're growing aggressive share there. Our Optizorb technology on Panadol, we're rolling out to another of under markets. We feel like we have a good innovation plan that should underpin, you know, our, certainly our medium-term, guidance. Dawn?

Dawn Allen (CFO)

Yeah. Morning, morning, David. Hi, everyone. Let me talk a bit about emerging markets and because we feel really excited about our emerging markets business. If I look at Asia PAC, first of all, I mean, we continue to deliver strong performance in Asia PAC. We expected an acceleration in half two versus half one, that has come through. When I look at the growth drivers in Asia PAC, 80% of our growth is coming from volume mix, and that is a factor of both driving penetration and expanding reach across lower-income consumer groups. If I look within Asia PAC, let me talk about India. I mean, an incredible performance in India. Double-digit growth in the year and acceleration in quarter four on the back of the macro changes around GST, but also on the fact of our activations.

You know, if I look at our INR 20 rupee pack, Sensodyne is performing incredibly well. We continue to expand our reach across rural areas, across villages, based on our investment in terms of bringing our sales force in-house. Actually, you know, I was out in India the first week of this year, and it was great to be on the ground with the team, visiting stores and really seeing our brands come to life. That was India. If I look at China, we're also really excited about China. Mid-single digit growth in the year and just some pockets to talk about. If I look at our e-commerce business, it's around 40% of our business in China. Douyin, you know, we're growing more than 100%, and our online-to-offline business is also growing double digits. Actually, we feel really good about China.

If I move on to EMEA, LATAM. EMEA, LATAM, actually, we've seen a good performance, particularly across LATAM and EMEA, Middle East and Africa, as well as Central Europe. It is fair to say that whilst we've seen a good performance, particularly in LATAM and specifically Brazil, we are seeing a much more challenging macro backdrop. You know, both in terms of the consumer behavior, but also in terms of retailer behavior as well. We did see a slowdown in LATAM, particularly in quarter four. If I thought about kind of Middle East, Africa continues to perform well. Central Europe, you know, also has seen a good performance. Again, based on the soft cough, cold and flu season in quarter four, we saw a slowdown, you know, in Central Europe because of that.

Overall, as I said, we're really excited about emerging markets. It's a huge growth opportunity for us. When I look at our A&P investment, half of our increase in A&P investment in the year actually went to emerging markets, and you can see that coming through in the performance.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Celine Pannuti with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Celine Pannuti (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning. My question comes back on the overall guidance and how you manage top-line performance versus margin improvement. Clearly, strong delivery in margin and your cost savings initiative augurs well for the years to come. At the same time, your top line has disappointed, and if I look at the past three years, volume has been 1%, which is quite low compared to the overall European staples. You know, best in class are trying to achieve at least two and above. You know, in order to grow 4%-6%, what kind of volume level do you think you need to have? And, how do you...

You know, like the discrepancy between margin progression and volume performance, does it mean that you may need to reinvest more, or maybe look at your price positioning, in order to grow volume faster? Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

... No, thanks for the question, Celine. Let me kick that off, and then I'll pass it to Dawn to give a bit more perspective. I think if you take a step back, I do think we're investing in the right places on the business. If you look at our A&P investment in the last year, we were over 7% ahead of a year ago. R&D was over 7% ahead of a year ago. That is the absolute benefit of the gross margin improvement and the improvements we've seen in our supply chain and structure, giving us 220 basis points of operating gross margin improvement, which is allowing us to invest in the business. We continue to focus on where is the best of that investment.

A lot of that incremental investment this year went against oral health, and you see the results that have come out. We understand that, you know, in a lower cold and flu season, also, while we can gain share, we're going to have a very difficult time, you know, driving volume overall. Maybe, Dawn, you can talk a little bit about how we see the algorithm going forward and where we see the role of volume growth, which we're very focused on volume growth. Dawn.

Dawn Allen (CFO)

Yeah, thanks for the question, Celine. You're right, and Brian mentioned it. We are very focused on driving volume growth. you know, in 2026 and moving forward, we've always said that the right price volume mix split for this business is around 60/40/60. I already talked about Asia-Pac, you know, in terms of 80% of our growth is coming from volume on Asia-Pac, and we feel really good about that. When I look at EMEA, LATAM, if I take out the two shoulders of the year, so if I take out Q1 and Q4 for 2025, where we had a soft cough, cold and flu season, actually, in Q2 and Q3, we did see a more balanced price volume mix profile, and that obviously should give us confidence moving forward that we can deliver that.

If I look at North America, look, it's been a really challenging market in North America in 2025. As Brian's talked about, we have put in place the key actions to drive volume growth in 2026. Whether it's about, you know, us no longer doing destocking, whether it's about reducing the drag from Smokers' Health, the distribution builds that we expect to get from shelf resets, as well as the strong activations. These are all important drivers in terms of driving the volume growth. Whilst for 2026, I'm not going to guide to specific volumes, I would expect us to be improving the split of price volume mix in 2026.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Olivier Nicolai (Head of Consumer Staples Research)

Hi, good morning. I've got one question first. Could you go back to the change you have implemented in the U.S. over the last 12 months, and specifically also the incentive structure you put in place for the new management there? Just following up on the press release on page five, regarding the overall equipment effectiveness, it has improved by 7 point in 2025. It's a bit lower than what you expected at H1. Should we assume a stronger improvement in 2026 compared to 2025 on these metrics? Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Yeah. Thanks for the question. Let me talk a bit about the U.S. As you know, we announced a new leader in the U.S. in May. As we looked at our operating model structure broadly, we worked very closely as an executive team to define that. I talked a little bit earlier when Warren asked the question about that, and we worked that very closely with the U.S. One of the things we've done is we've created these category general manager roles, which obviously report directly up to our president of the U.S. and also are connected to our global category heads, which is going to help us really drive some of this strategy to execution even faster. We're making a number of changes around net revenue management and the tools that we're providing.

We've made a number of changes in our sales force and our sales leadership and structure. All that was really pretty much done on January eighth, when we announced the broader stuff. In the U.S., you obviously move much faster on those kind of changes. I feel really good about those changes and how they're gonna drive growth. As I said, we've seen progress to date. There's no question about it. We ended up, again, where we expected to. Inventories are kind of where we expected to. Oral health has been extremely strong. Advil grew share in Q4, so that was a really important element. You know, we see these opportunities on the distribution and stuff that I talked about in Q2.

I feel like we're in a very good place to really drive those changes in the U.S.

Dawn Allen (CFO)

I think, look, in terms of the productivity program, Brian talked about it. We're really pleased with our supply chain productivity program. It was even better than we expected. I mean, 220 basis points improvement in gross margin, you know, is incredible in the year, and it is a collective effort across the whole organization, and that's important because it helps to drive flexibility and agility in the P&L to be able to invest for growth. If you remember, we talked about three drivers of how were we going to deliver that gross margin improvement and productivity benefit. The first one we talked about was immediate accelerators. So this was reducing complexity in our supply chain, whether it's around number of languages on pack, harmonizing packaging, formulations. Let me give you an example.

In Europe, in 2025, on our Aquafresh brand, we had 44 single language packs, and we've now reduced to 18 multi-language packs in the year. That is a, you know, huge optimization piece in terms of supply chain. The second area that you referenced in your, in your question was around operational efficiency, and this is all about debottlenecking our plants, process improvement, equipment optimization. Let me give you an example of that. In our Levice factory, in Europe, we reduced formulations by 30%. If you think about the impact of that reduces change over time, but it also increases the capacity, the available capacity on that line, which is really important. I think, as I said, it's an incredible effort that is helping us to continue to invest in the business to drive growth.

Moving forward, you know, it would be great if we had that level of improvement each year, but, you know, moving forward, 50-80 basis points, you know, is what we've built into our guidance. That will be a strong performance on supply chain productivity.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Jeremy Fialko with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Fialko (Head of Consumer Staples Research)

Hi. Hi, morning. Thanks, thank you for the question. The one for me is more on the U.S. market more generally. The first element is just the pharma channel within the U.S. Do you see that continuing to be under pressure in 2026? Or do you think with some of the ownership changes there's the possibility that the channel could become a little bit better and some of the, say, the broader drops there, which have, I guess, led to pressure on inventories and overall sell-through could abate?

Then maybe if you look at the U.S. more broadly, is it just a case of waiting for the consumer to get a bit better before the market growth can improve, or are there some other elements, you know, that you think are kind of specific to the market getting a bit better, let's say, putting aside any cold and flu impacts? Thanks.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Thanks, Jeremy. Thanks for the question. Let me take that. I think as you talk, pharmacy channel, really, what we've talked about is the two big retailers in the U.S., which is Walgreens and CVS. What I can say is, you know, we see the channel shift that we've seen for many years, which is, you know, drug channel and obviously, e-commerce. E-commerce growing quite aggressively, if that's Walmart.com or if that's Amazon.com, you know, that will continue. The dynamic we saw in 2025 was lower inventory levels in those retailers as they were dealing with their own challenges. We believe we're where we need to be, now we're just managing normal channel shifts as we can. Oh, by the way, that channel shift is not a bad thing for us.

If we look at our Amazon shares, 18 brands on Amazon account for 90% of our business on Amazon, and 16 of those 18 brands have higher share online than offline. As that channel shift moves, it's something we can take advantage of. We have good capabilities there, so we feel good about that channel shift. Yet to be seen what happens under new ownership at Walgreens, if that's a positive or not a positive. Again, I don't feel like this is a situation that get worse. We baked it in. We proactively managed our inventory levels to try to be at a place where we felt good about, so we can stop talking about it as we move forward.

In the overall market, you said the ex-seasonality, so I will take that out because there's certainly a seasonality impact that we're kind of seeing. Listen, what we see in the dynamic is we see club channel doing a bit better, dollar channel doing a bit better as consumers are looking for more value. Some consumers looking for lower price points, some consumers looking for a different consumer, but want value, higher price point, lower price per use. We're very focused on those two channels and increasing our offerings to make sure that we're meeting the affordability issues of consumers in the U.S. We believe we can also play a role, and we do play a role, certainly in oral health, in driving that category growth. We're not sitting back and waiting for the categories to change.

We're just acknowledging that there are some things we can't control. We're focused on competitiveness, growing market share. We feel confident in that. We're focused on driving that category growth, where we can.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Sarah Simon (Managing Director)

Yes, morning. Just one question from me. How important is it in terms of securing shelf space and sort of with your retailer negotiations to have that cold and flu business? I think, you know, in your bid to become a sort of steady compounder with predictable top line, this is obviously the kind of bit that's causing the biggest issue. I'm just wondering how much you need to own that business. Thanks.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Okay, well, Sarah, thanks for the question. Let me take that. Listen, I think cold and flu plays an incredibly enormous role in consumer health and for consumers. You know, if you look over the history, I've been involved in consumer health now for over 20 years. I've seen quite a few cold and flu seasons. You know, this year we're seeing kind of two seasons in a row that are down, because if you remember last year we were down. We know that Q1 is also going to be down. It doesn't happen that often, but it has happened in the past. We've experienced that in the past. I believe if you look over time, you're going to see growth in this category, going forward.

It's a bit exasperated this year because we are dealing with multiple headwinds in a U.S. environment, which this is compounded on. I think it's a very important category. We feel good about our positions in the category and our portfolio. I think it's gonna play a very important role for our customers, too. As you were saying, it, this is, you know, category management around pain and cold and flu, and frankly, cold and flu and pain has some common brands, Panadol Cold & Flu, Advil Cold & Flu. We think it's an important part of the portfolio as we move forward.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is come from Karel Zoete with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Karel Zoete (Head of Netherlands Equity Research)

Yes, good morning, all. Thanks for taking the questions. I, yeah, I'd like to go a bit deeper into two categories. The first one is the digestive health business, and historically, a good business for you, not so seasonal, but we've seen a slowdown in 2025. What should we anticipate for 2026? Why should things get better? Coming back to pain, I know there's a bit of cold and flu impact in there, but if you zoom out, 2024, 2025 have not been great years for pain, despite of some of your strongest franchises, such as Panadol in Asia, are there. What is needed for the pain franchise to start performing more in line with the anticipated growth rates? Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Okay, thanks very much, Karel. Appreciate the questions. Let me start with digestive health. If you think about our digestive health business, just so to get us grounded, it is over 80% of that business is focused in three countries: U.S., India, and Brazil. In India and Brazil, it's Eno, which is a fantastic brand and does very well in both cases and is part of our, you know, our strategy and our growth strategy, certainly in both those countries and certainly in India. Now you get to the U.S., where we have TUMS, we have Nexium, brands like Gas-X and Ex-Lax, Benefiber, which is a fantastic brand. We have seen a drag in on Nexium in the U.S.

There's no question that is one brand and one category, and we're not alone in this, that has been impacted by a private label. If I zoom out and look at the U.S. overall, we've gained share versus private label, but Nexium has been a bit of a challenge there. One of the opportunities we see in digestive health, and we feel really good about, and we're now working, is supporting consumers on GLP-1s, because there's multiple side effects on GLP-1s that brands like TUMS and brands like Benefiber address. There's also side effects like dry mouth, which we have a mouthwash brand we don't talk about much in the U.S., Biotene, which is actually quite effective in dry mouth.

There's nutritional supplementation, and we've actually created a Centrum variant that's specifically focused to deal with people and consumers. We see an opportunity across our categories to drive that. TUMS is a tremendously performing brand and so is Benefiber. We have dealt with a little bit of the drag from the Nexium side of the business. Listen, on pain relief, it's a great portfolio. I mean, Voltaren's number one topical analgesic in the world. By the way, we talk a lot about the topical. We also have a very strong patch business. I mentioned earlier, we're launching 24-hour patch in a number of markets around the world, and we're seeing quite a successful pickup of that. Panadol has been done quite well in Asia.

We don't have quite the same strength of a systemic pain relief business through Europe, we're addressing that. We're launching there. The big thing is on Advil. Like I said, we're growing Advil share in Q4. We're really confident that now with the new structure, with the new focus, our ability to invest and everything else, that we'll get Advil back to a more consistent performer. That's gonna be important for us, that's one of the things we need to make sure that we drive and deliver on the business. Overall, listen, we've always said the OTC categories in general would be, you know, 2%-3% growth categories, we could outgrow that. They've seen a little bit of headwinds here and in the U.S., as all categories have been a bit muted.

Not super declines, but a bit muted. We're addressing that, but we feel very good about that, franchise and the global nature of that franchise.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Edward Lewis with Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please go ahead.

Edward Lewis (Partner)

Thanks very much. Morning, everyone. Brian, just returning to the medium-term guidance, should we think that getting back to that range is all about the U.S., or do you think you can deliver against that with a structurally slower U.S. market, but greater contribution from the rest of the world, given the confidence you're obviously expressing about India and China?

Brian McNamara (CEO)

... Yeah, listen, as I think about the medium-term guidance, I do expect that the U.S. will perform better. There's two things. We've outperformed the market, to be clear, in 2025. Do I feel like the performance is, we're hitting it on all cylinders? We have not. We can do better. Just outperforming the market isn't enough, and I am confident we can do better. We do expect an improvement in that U.S. environment. I believe over the next couple of years, we'll get that U.S. environment, if not too close to the bottom end of our algorithm growth.

Outside of that, well, we also expect that, again, over time, emerging markets will continue to be a strong contributor, and the low-income consumer strategy we have, which is taking hold in certain places, and we're learning a lot, to be very clear. That takes a bit of time, you know, to kind of build up to be significant, and we see those opportunities. You know, overall, I do feel the medium term of 4%-6%, that nothing has fundamentally changed versus what we have said and what we've said in the past about our strategy and our opportunities. What you're hearing from us this year is 3%-5% because the market is still quite uncertain, and we want to make sure we're providing the proper context for everyone on where we see things are at.

Again, where we sit now, knowing Q1 is going to be softer due to cold and flu, middle of the range is kind of where we're at on that, and we'll update as the year goes on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

I believe-

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Tom Sykes with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Tom Sykes (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you. Morning, everybody. One quick follow-up and one on A&P, please. Are you able to quantify the shelf space stocking benefit that you'll get in either Q1 or Q2 in North America, please? Just on the A&P spend, I mean, there can't be many consumer companies that have increased A&P by almost 8% to 20% of sales and still running at negative volumes. Where is the A&P ineffective, and where is it effective? Does it make much of a difference in your non-oral care businesses at the moment? Can you talk about whether you're allocating more or that A&P increase to oral care or to non-oral care, please?

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Thanks, Tom. Thanks for the question. Let me take the U.S. stocking. I'll pass it to Dawn on the A&P question. Listen, we're not going to guide the specific improvements on the, you know, on the shelving increases, but let's just say it's part of the thing that gives us the confidence as we progress through the year, that we'll see stronger results because it's real. Consumers will see more of our brands. We'll have a bigger shelf space, and in a number of cases, we'll be at a better visibility point in some key resellers. Dawn, you want to talk about A&P?

Dawn Allen (CFO)

Yeah. Look, thanks for the question, and I think it also builds on one of the comments that Celine talked about in terms of the margin profile as well. Let me say a few words about that. I think, look, it's often easy for companies to cut A&P when the market's more challenging. We have not done that, we haven't done that because we've really focused on ensuring the long-term sustainable growth for this business. We, you're right, we've increased A&P 7.5%. We've increased R&D 7.7% in the year, and we invest in our brands at a healthy and the right level to drive that sustainable growth. If I kind of give a bit more color behind that, where has that increase in A&P, where has it gone?

We've already talked about it. Half of that increase went to oral health. You know, you've seen the growth momentum in, on that this year in terms of high single digit and acceleration in Q4, and the ROI on that, on oral health is incredibly strong. The other half, I referenced it earlier, went to emerging markets, so India, you know, Douyin in China, and that's really important. The third area actually is around expert. Expert is a critical part of our business model in terms of, you know, the work that we're doing around the Haleon Health Partner, where registrations have increased 27% in the year, and on our field force engagement, you know, which has also increased 16% in the year. That's where the spend has gone.

The other thing that we are critically focused on, as well as ensuring it's the right level, is also around the return, the efficiency, and the effectiveness. In the year, we've improved our working, non-working split, so 12% growth in working media. We've also increased our overall ROI, mid-single digit, and we've increased the coverage, the global coverage, to around three-quarters of our business. The other thing that we're focused on is also the mix. Sixty percent of our working media is allocated to digital, and that's an important balance for us as we think about, you know, the shift in the broader economy. I would say overall, look, it's an important focus area for us. We, you know, we invest at healthy level, 20.5%.

I feel really good about that, and we also continue to focus on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our spend, as well as ensuring that we are shifting and having the right mix around digital versus legacy.

Brian McNamara (CEO)

Okay, super. Thanks, Dawn. Listen, I think we are going to close the call now. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate you joining us today. Look forward to catching up with all of you in upcoming meetings and roadshows. Please feel free to reach out to the IR team if you have any further questions. Really appreciate your continued interest and support in Haleon. Thanks, everybody.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That concludes Haleon fiscal year 2025 results Q&A. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.