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Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Unilever's first quarter trading statement for 2026. I'm joined today by Srini Phatak, our Chief Financial Officer. In a moment, Srini will take you through the detail of the quarter. I will also come back to say a few words on the recent announcement regarding our Foods business and why we believe this is the right move for Foods, for Unilever, and ultimately for our shareholders that will unlock significant value. First, let me set out what I see as the key elements of our performance in the first quarter. We made a good start to a year. Growth was solid, and importantly, in line with the strategic priorities we have set for the business. We deliver underlying sales growth of 3.8%, driven by a strong volume growth of 2.9% in the quarter.

Growth was broad based across categories with a particularly strong quarter in Home Care with volumes up 6.2% driven by a strong innovation plan and good volumes in our two largest Home Care markets, India and Brazil. Our Power Brands, which represent around 78% of turnover, continue to lead the way, growing 5% in the quarter with volumes up 4%, reflecting the benefits of our high quality innovation and focused investment behind these brands. Emerging markets perform well with a further step up in volume growth to 4.2%. We saw strong performances in markets such as India, Turkey, and Vietnam. At the same time, those markets where we have taken decisive actions to improve competitiveness, Indonesia, China, Brazil, all continue to make good progress. Developed markets remain resilient in a challenging environment.

North America delivered volumes of 2.2%, led by Personal Care and Beauty despite strong competitors. Europe remains more subdued, reflecting the softer backdrop. We also continue to make good progress against our strategic priorities, strengthening Desire at Scale across our portfolio and improving the quality of our execution. I will come back to say more on this later. First, over to Srini to take you through the results in more detail.

Thank you, Fernando. Let me start with our growth profile in the quarter. We delivered 3.8% underlying sales growth with volume at 2.9% and pricing at 0.9%, maintaining a strong volume-led growth profile. On a two year basis, our volume growth remains robust at 2% CAGR, reflecting the improving quality and consistency of our growth. Looking at our performance on a quarterly basis, we have delivered average volume growth of 2.5% over the last nine quarters, demonstrating the resilience and repeatability of our model. This consistency reflects the progress we are making to elevate our brands and execute flawlessly in our markets through Desire at Scale. Growth continues to be driven by our Power Brands, which grew 5% with 4% coming from volume. These brands represent 78% of our turnover and remain our primary growth engine.

The rest of our portfolio grew at a lower rate due to a few specific factors. In Foods, commodity deflation weighed in on our tea brands in India. In Beauty and Personal Care, we are prioritizing investments behind brands with strong momentum while reducing support for the tail brands. Pricing in the quarter was 0.9%. This reflects the carryover impact of price reductions in Home Care, notably in Brazil and in liquids in India. Tea deflation in India and the increased in-store activation and shelf investment in Personal Care linked to our FIFA World Cup activations. Importantly, our competitive positions remain stable in both value and volume terms. As we look ahead and given the commodity cost environment, we expect pricing to play a bigger role as the year progresses, particularly in the second half.

Beauty & Wellbeing delivered 3.6% underlying sales growth with 1.9% from volume and 1.6% from price driven by a solid performance across the Beauty portfolio. Hair delivered high single-digit growth led by double-digit growth in Dove Hair and K18. With premium innovations such as Dove UV Repair & Glow bringing advanced protection against UV damage. We also saw improving performance in Sunsilk and Clear with growth becoming more balanced across markets. Skin grew low single-digit with strong growth in Vaseline supported by the Pro Derma body range. This was complemented by the continued momentum in Dermalogica and Tatcha, partially offset by a weaker performance in local brands. Wellbeing declined low single-digit reflecting a very strong quarter one comparator of over 23%. OLLY delivered double-digit growth supported by digital commerce momentum and distribution gains.

We expect performance to improve from Q2 driven by Liquid I.V. and Nutrafol as the campaigns to drive multiple usage occasions and attract new consumers gain traction. Personal Care delivered 3.7% underlying sales growth with 1.1% from volume and 2.5% from price, with volume showing sequential improvement. Dove continued to lead growth delivering double-digit growth in deodorants and high single-digit growth in skin cleansing. At a category level, deodorants and skin cleansing both delivered mid single-digit growth supported by a strong performance in North America. In deodorants, growth was broad-based with sequential improvement in Rexona and Axe, including early signs of recovery in Brazil. Skin cleansing growth was supported by the continued rollout of premium innovations such as Dove Serum+ Oil Body Wash with strong performance in emerging markets.

Oral care was flat with growth in Asia Pacific Africa offset by softer performance in Europe. We are excited by our FIFA World Cup 2026 platform activations and the campaign. These will scale in the coming quarters and amplify the growth momentum, particularly in deodorants. Home Care delivered 6.1% underlying sales growth, with 6.2% from volume and price being broadly flat, reflecting the strong volume-led growth by emerging markets. Brazil delivered double-digit volume growth, while India delivered high single-digit volume growth, with double-digit growth in liquids and record market share in powders. At a category level, fabric cleaning and fabric enhancers both delivered mid single digit growth led by our premium portfolio. In fabric cleaning, we delivered double-digit growth in liquids, supported by the rollout of new Wonder Wash variants alongside a return to growth in powders. Wonder Wash is now available in 41 countries.

Fabric enhancers continued to benefit from the strength of Comfort. Home and hygiene also delivered mid single-digit growth, with Cif continuing to perform strongly, and this was supported by the launch of Cif Infinite Clean Anti-Bac. Looking ahead, given commodity pressures, we expect more balance between volume and price in the coming quarters. Foods delivered Underlying Sales Growth of 2.2%, with 2.4% from volume and price being slightly negative, reflecting volume-led growth across both retail and foodservice. Hellmann's delivered mid single-digit volume growth, supported by the continued success of the premium flavor-led innovations and strong execution across markets. Performance was particularly strong in Brazil, supported by the NBA campaign, and in the U.K. with the launch of the new Ranch range.

Cooking aids delivered low single-digit growth with strong performance in Asia Pacific Africa, partly offset by softer conditions in developed markets, notably Europe. Unilever Food Solutions also grew low single-digit, supported by improving trends in away-from-home consumption, particularly in China, its largest market. We'll continue to step up innovation and sharpen execution to sustain and strengthen our competitive growth. Emerging markets delivered strong broad-based growth with improving momentum across key markets. Asia Pacific Africa delivered 5.9% underlying sales growth with 5% from volume, reflecting broad-based performance and improving competitiveness across markets. Over the last three quarters on an average, we have delivered volume-led growth of around 6%. India accelerated to 7% with 6% volume growth, continuing the improving momentum seen over recent quarters.

Growth was broad-based with Home Care and Beauty & Wellbeing performing strongly and solid delivery across the rest of the portfolio. This is not driven by a single category or any short-term factors. It reflects the progress we are making on sharper portfolio choices, fewer bigger growth bets, and improved execution across channels with higher growth segments and premium parts of the portfolio contributing disproportionately to this performance. We are also seeing continued progress in the newer channels and demand drivers, including e-commerce and modern trade, which are growing ahead of the core business and supporting the overall mix. In China, we delivered another quarter of mid single-digit growth in what remains a highly competitive market environment with differentiated growth across channels. Performance was driven by Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, and supported by premium innovations, improved go-to-market execution, and continued progress in social and digital channels.

We are seeing improving competitiveness, particularly in our Power Brands. Indonesia delivered solid growth of 4%, which reflects a clear improvement in the trajectory of the business following the reset. We are now seeing a return to more sustainable growth levels, supported by improved execution across channels, stronger innovation pipelines, and better activation in both traditional and modern trade. Importantly, market shares have now stabilized with around half the business now gaining share, reflecting progress from the actions taken. There is still more to do to fully restore competitiveness. We're also seeing strong growth in the newer channels, including health and beauty and e-commerce, which are growing ahead of the core business and contributing well to the overall momentum. The Middle East represents around 2% of our turnover, and our operations in the region remain intact in quarter one, with no material disruption to supply.

Our priority remains the safety of our teams working in the region. More broadly, we have built a highly localized and flexible supply chain, which together with the inventory covers, has enabled us to manage the situation effectively to date. We continue to monitor and take proactive actions in what remains a volatile environment. Turning to Latin America, we delivered 6.2% underlying sales growth with solid volume growth of 2.6% alongside 3.5% pricing, reflecting a clear improvement in the momentum across the region. This was supported by strong volume performance Brazil laundry following the corrective pricing actions, and in Mexico Personal Care driven by operational improvements. Beauty & Wellbeing delivered double-digit growth and good performance across key markets. Developed markets delivered a mixed performance in the quarter.

North America delivered resilient performance in soft market with 2.1% growth driven by 2.2% volume, while price was slightly negative. This reflects the strength of our execution and the competitiveness of our portfolio with continued momentum in Power Brands. Growth was led by Personal Care, which delivered mid-single-digit growth with strong volume momentum in deodorants and skin cleansing, underpinned by the continued strength in Dove and our premium innovations. In Beauty & Wellbeing, volume-led growth in skincare and haircare was offset by Wellbeing, which declined against a very strong prior year comparator. In Foods, performance was flat overall, with Hellmann's continuing to deliver good volume-led growth. In Europe, underlying sales declined to 0.9% with a 1.2% decline in volume and a 0.3% growth from price.

Performance reflects a soft market environment across categories with consumer demand remaining subdued. Within that, premium innovation supported growth in categories such as laundry, deodorants, and condiments. Our largest category, cooking aids, declined in low single-digit in line with market conditions. Turnover for the quarter was EUR 12.6 billion, down 3.3% year-on-year. Underlying growth of 3.8% was more than offset by currency headwinds, with FX reducing the reported turnover by 7.7%. Given that currency devaluation was more pronounced in the second half of 2025, the base effect should ease as the year progresses. Based on the April spot rates, we expect the full year currency impact on the turnover to be lower at around minus 3%.

Portfolio changes contributed to a net positive 0.9%, with acquisitions adding 1.4% reflecting the strong performances of Dr. Squatch, Wild, and Minimalist, and this was partly offset by a 0.5% impact from disposals primarily relating to foods and the tea business in Indonesia. Our full year outlook remains unchanged. We expect underlying sales growth for the full year 2026 to be at the bottom end of our multiyear guidance range of 4%-6%, with at least 2% underlying volume growth for the full year. On margin, we expect a modest improvement versus last year, with broadly similar absolute margin levels between the first and second halves.

The margins are supported by volume growth, mix improvement, continued savings, and benefits from our productivity program, which continues to run ahead of the schedule and has already delivered EUR 750 million by the end of quarter one. We will maintain competitive and healthy levels of brand investment. Given the current environment, there are a number of moving parts, particularly around input costs, pricing, and market conditions, and we'll continue to manage these with discipline. On capital returns, today we have initiated a EUR 1.5 billion share buyback, and we expect to complete the program towards the end of first half. We remain committed to sustain attractive and growing dividends. Our medium-term leverage target remains around 2x. We expect to be below 2x immediately following the separation of Foods. With that, over to you, Fernando.

Thank you, Srini. Let me come back now to the broader steps we are taking to build a simpler, sharper, faster Unilever. At the highest level, there are three things we are doing, and they are very much interconnected. First, elevating our brands to outperform markets in volume growth. Second, stepping up operational excellence across all our geographies. Third, taking decisive portfolio actions to unlock value. Let me start with the first, Desire at Scale. This is the model we are using to elevate the quality, relevance, and the reach of our brands, and it is, without question, the single biggest driver of the improvement we are seeing in the unmissable brand superior discourse of our portfolio and in the volume growth rate of our Power Brands. Desire at Scale is built around a very clear, simple framework, what we call SASSY brands.

It is about brands that are rooted in superior science with top-notch aesthetics and visibility and with truly compelling sensorials. Brands that are talked about, recommended by many to many, and that are culturally relevant, simple, clear, effective. You can see this very clearly in brands like Dove and Vaseline. Dove is now close to a EUR 7 billion brand, and it has delivered more than 6% growth for 14 consecutive quarters. Over the last five years, it has added around EUR 2 billion of incremental turnover, and that is coming from a step change in product superiority combined with a completely different model of consumer engagement, with more than 100,000 creators actively working with the brand. Or take Vaseline, a 150 year old brand that we have fundamentally transformed.

It has been delivering double-digit growth over the last five years. By combining superior science with cultural relevance, it is now building real momentum with younger consumers. For example, delivering more than 100% growth in TikTok Shop in Southeast Asia, a demonstration of Vaseline strength in social commerce at scale. The second element is operational excellence because Desire at Scale only works if it is supported by flawless execution. This is about how we create categories and how we execute in the market together with our customers, understanding consumers better, activating brilliantly, and executing perfectly in store, both offline and online. Again, we have a growing number of great examples like [inaudible] and Wonder Wash, an innovation anchored in superior science already at around EUR 200 million of annualized turnover.

By redefining the category to short wash cycles, Wonder Wash is strengthening our position in the fast-growing liquid segment of laundry and scaling up at speed. Hellmann's flavored mayo that is now in 35 markets and has already reached EUR 100 million of annualized turnover. Different brands, different categories, different geographies, all benefiting from a common marketing philosophy rooted in what consumers expect and demand of brands today, brands that are creative and dynamic reflection of the present and not a tired representation of the past. Let me turn now to the third element, the portfolio. Here we are taking decisive action to unlock value through the separation of Foods and its combination with McCormick. We are doing this from a position of strength, fully aligned with the strategy we have been executing. The transaction we have announced creates two businesses with improved growth profiles.

First, a simpler and more focused Unilever, a pure-play HPC business, a business with a very coherent portfolio, where around 90% of the turnover is in number one or number two positions, and with a proven ability to deliver top-tier volume growth and top-tier return on invested capital. Given relative valuation and relative in-market performance to peers, we see clear valuation upside here. Second, a highly distinctive Foods business, a scaled global flavor powerhouse with iconic brands and leading positions in attractive segments of the Foods market and with significant revenue growth potential. There is a clear strategic fit between Unilever Foods and McCormick, centered around complementary geographical footprints, a stronger presence in retail, a scaled business across food service channels, and leading science and research and development capabilities focused exclusively on flavor.

It is for all these reasons I am referring to this as a growth-led separation of our Foods business, one that will give shareholders the same level of exposure to Foods, but with much higher quality and more optionality than they have today. We know that this is a significant change and that it has to be delivered flawlessly, we are confident that it will. We have proven experience in separations, most recently with ice cream. Our experience confirms our ability to separate a business of scale while delivering top-line growth, volume, and margin progression. The transitional service agreements will ensure continuity while providing the time needed to remove stranded costs before they impact the P&L. We already have dedicated teams in place working closely and collaboratively alongside McCormick, who themselves have a strong integration track record.

All work streams to separate Foods from Unilever and integrate the business into McCormick are now in motion, we are moving fast. With that, let me briefly sum up after what has been a positive start to 2026 for Unilever. It was a quarter in which we once again demonstrated our ability to both perform and transform. Performance comes in the shape of superior volume-led growth, our single biggest priority, driven by our Power Brands and by one of the most distinctive Unilever assets, its strength in emerging markets. Underpinning this positive start to the year, it is a further step up in operational discipline, something which becomes even more important in light of the current heightened macroeconomic uncertainties. We will manage the business in a more volatile cost environment, focusing on volume growth, price competitiveness, and discipline management of every single line of the P&L.

We will emphasize the drivers of demand that have the highest return in the current context. We are confident in our delivery, we are reasserting our full year outlook for 2026. We have taken a decisive action to transform our future portfolio, and we have done it from a position of strength and driven by a growth mindset. Our organization today is stronger. Our portfolio is sharper. Our priorities are clearer. Desire at Scale is breathing new life into our Power Brands and our whole marketing. We are now capitalizing on these developments with much more discipline in market execution. Wherever we have made decisive interventions, like Indonesia, China, or more recently, Brazil, positive results are showing up.

To go through these changes in more depth, we look forward to hosting a Capital Markets Day on November 4th, when we will go deeper into how we will capitalize on our new, sharper, fully focused home and Personal Care pure play, one that is aligned to higher growth categories, faster-growing geographies, more premium segments, and a superior route to market. For now, thank you for listening. We look forward to taking your questions.

Many thanks for joining the call. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your keypad. If you no longer wish to ask a question, please press star two to exit the queue. When it is your turn to ask a question, your name will be called out. And finally, please keep your questions to a maximum of two.

Thank you very much for joining the call. Our first question comes from Warren at Barclays. Go ahead, Warren.

Yeah. Good morning, Fernando, Srini, and Jemma. Warren here. I've got one housekeeping just to clarify. Did you say that North America would accelerate from here? Just, it was a bit quick, if you can just clarify that. My two questions are, firstly, Fernando, on emerging markets, are you able to talk about how you feel about the four big engines of Brazil, India, China, and Indonesia as we look into Q2 in the second half? Any signs of a slowdown also in Southeast Asia? The EM outlook from here, you've obviously got easy comps in some places like LATAM. Secondly, Srini, on the margin guidance, with higher oil, are you able to give us an NMI number? How much scope do you have to push productivity savings and/or pricing to make sure that you are indeed able to deliver the margin guide despite higher oil? Thank you.

Cool. Thank you, Warren. I will cover the geographical part and Srini will cover the cost one. Well, let me start saying that we are pleased with our good start to the year, you know, 3.8% USG, 2.9% in volume, Power Brands at 4% USG, Dove, our largest brand, at 7% USG. We have seen also a strong start to quarter two despite all the uncertainties that are very obvious to everyone in terms of geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. Momentum continues in the business. Regarding emerging markets, you know, as I mentioned this many times, our strength in emerging markets is definitely a long-term competitive advantage given the exposure they give us to better population growth rate, wealth maximum expansion.

We know this gap versus developed markets are reducing versus the past, but it remains significant, you know. The resilience of our portfolio in emerging markets is a particular advantage when you have to drive the business in conditions of significant volatility. Regarding the specific regions you mentioned, in Latin America, our performance is accelerating. We deliver more than 6% underlying sales growth in the quarter. Foods and Beauty & Wellbeing keep performing strongly as they did in 2025. We are also starting to see the impact of the decisive actions we have taken in both laundry and deodorants, particularly in Brazil. In Brazil, we deliver double-digit growth in laundry.

Two reasons for that, the successful introduction of Wonder Wash in the liquids segment, but also the return we are seeing for the correction in pricing that we have done to restore competitiveness in the powder segment, that is the largest in the laundry categories. In deos also we are seeing momentum there. You know, the aerosol format is recovering. This is crucial to boost market growth and also to boost our competitiveness. We are in early stages of that recovery. We see this will accelerate in Q2 with the FIFA activitation that we will have, and with the setup of a new planograms that we have done in partnership with our retailers. India, Srini can cover in more detail, but a strong broad-based performance.

9% growth in Home Care, 8% in Beauty, 5% both in Personal Care and Foods. India, Srini can cover a bit more on that. China return to mid single digit growth. We are very pleased with the improvements in food service, particularly in China. We are seeing the out-of-home channel in China picking up, that's very important for our most important food service business, that is the one in China. Indonesia, run rates continue improving. It's the fifth consecutive quarter with run rates improving. We deliver 4% growth. That is much more sustainable. We have had in the second half of last year very low comparators there, performance is good. In U.S., as you know, we have delivered 4% volume growth in North America in the last three years.

It has been a very consistent performance despite tough markets. Probably has been one of the best performances in the sector, we believe this performance is a reflection of the profound transformation we have done to our portfolio. You know, we are seeing also significant improvement in our relationship with customers. I have mentioned before that in the Advantage survey, we have ranked number one in PC, Foods number three, in Beauty, recently we have received the Consumable Supplier of the Year award and the Excellence in Assortment award from the largest U.S. retailer. This is another evidence that our partnership with retailers in U.S. is really going from strength to strength. Quarter one was softer at 2.1% USG. All came from volume. Performance in Personal Care was strong, great performance in Dove Hair and TRESemmé styling.

The quarter was affected by weak performance in Foods and Wellbeing. Wellbeing had very, very strong comparators, more than 20% in the same quarter last year, more than 40% in Liquid I.V. We remain very, very confident of the structural growth potential of the Wellbeing verticals, and we see Wellbeing firmly back into growth in U.S. in quarter two. There are a couple of brands that we need to fix in U.S., particularly Nexxus and SheaMoisture in Hair Care, but we see our performance in U.S. accelerating from quarter two onwards. Srini?

Yeah. Thanks, Fernando. Thanks, Warren. I'll cover it in two parts. First, I'll talk a bit about India, then I'll go on to commodity inflation and how we're going to manage that. I think the point Fernando made is the right one. The quality of performance in India has been of a very high order. It's just not the headline number, but it's across the breadth of the performance, which is broad-based. Giving you some color, let's say when we look at it from a Home Care perspective, while growth was at 9%, what is really impressive is that in liquids we have grown double-digit. That's really leading the market development. In powders, we've actually hit record shares. That's on that.

If I really talk about, let's say, Beauty & Wellbeing, the strong momentum in hair continues, we are making very clear choices in investments between quick commerce, e-commerce and broadly broader omnichannel. The pricing actions along with the GST have started to spur growth in this. Even the new age brands such as Minimalist are performing quite well in the market, that's giving us a lot of confidence in this segment. Personal Care growth was at 5%, strong step up in the premium segments, which is including Dove and Pears. For example, in the market development opportunities such as body washes, we have actually gained about 400 basis points of share, which again starts to step up well into the future.

Last element, when you think from a Foods perspective, we've also seen a bit of an uptick, actually an improvement in Horlicks with all the actions we have taken. There is some deflation in tea. Overall, from a volume and a value perspective, the Foods business is looking good. This is all aligned to the strategic progress that we made across the four pillars of segmenting consumers, making our brands desirable, accelerating the frontline capabilities, and making fewer and bigger bets. To add a couple of elements, we have put in a new organization to really address our quick commerce and e-commerce and omnichannel capability. That is functioning well.

From a general trade perspective, we have increased the outlet coverage by about 200,000 outlets, which takes us to about 2.3 million. The India operating model is actually enabling us to drive execution and agility. It's also important to highlight one element from an India context. While there is inflation, and there will be both from an imported crude as well as currency. It's important to highlight that classically in a category such as Home Care, this actually works in our favor. We have the portfolio to cater to the different price points through brands. More importantly, a lot of the local players get constrained both from a supply perspective as well as cash. You have the unique opportunity and the ability to actually manage the right price and volume equation in India and continue to keep the growth momentum going.

Therefore, from a broad demand outlook perspective, India is looking good, and we are quite confident in terms of our ability to continue to keep the growth momentum. Coming to the question on cost and commodity, I will take a little bit of time to explain this. I do appreciate that it's on everyone's mind. First and foremost, we want to reiterate that there is no change to the Unilever value creation model. Our model is built on volume-led growth, premiumization and mix, driving gross margins to invest behind our brands, and keeping a very tight discipline in terms of the cost.

While you all know we have made significant progress in the past few years in terms of our gross margin expansion, upwards of 400 basis points, we've also increased our investments behind our brands from about 13%-16%, and we have continued to drive a model which works for us on a multi-year basis. If I just give a bit of a context to 2025, again, it's important to say last year we had reasonable amount of commodity inflation, but a significant pressure coming from currencies. From an EPS or an earnings perspective, the currency drag last year was as high as 8.8%. When you contrast it to this year, given the commodity outlook, we will expect commodity inflation to be higher. From a currency perspective this year, we definitely see that it's going to be much better.

Even when you see when we've called out in the earnings call, we expect that the impact of Forex on our top line should be more normalized to 3%, and if you contrast it to last year, that was 6%. The key essence of the message here is while we will see inflation from a commodity, currency at an aggregate will really be from the information we have, favorable for us. Now, coming to the inflation, of course, the Middle East crisis has created uncertainties and has made the outlook a bit challenging. Inflation for us is just not one number. While there is crude and everyone really anchors around crude, it is complex because there are many crude linked derivatives. There is Forex, there are elements of supply chain costs, wage inflation, and others.

At a commodity level, there are elements which start to play out differently. Our expectation for the full year inflation is in the range of about EUR 750 million-EUR 900 million. This is the total inflation, this is just not material inflation, but also the non-material costs, including logistics and our factory operations. If you were to put it into context, this will be about EUR 350 million-EUR 500 million higher than our prior expectations when we began the year. Our working assumption for all these costs is really crude at around EUR 100.

While we are all looking at a spot crude, which is today's context of EUR 124 or yesterday's EUR 110, it's also important to highlight that when you really look at the futures, Q3 futures are still at EUR 100 and Q4 futures are at about EUR 90. On a balance, therefore, what we have done is to really take EUR 100 as a working assumption in our guide. On that basis, we have said that we will continue to deliver a modest margin expansion. Couple of other elements to highlight in this, because that becomes very important. When we really see it from a category perspective, when you see Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, the aggregate levels of inflation that we see in 2026 are not materially different to what we experienced in the prior year.

In the prior year, we have managed both the volume and the pricing extremely well in these two business groups. The place where we will see heightened inflation, actually 50% of the total net inflation for us is coming through in Home Care, and 70% of that is actually focused around the emerging markets. We are deploying the full range of mitigation opportunities, competitive buying, commodity covers, formulation flexibility, packaging interventions, SKU focus, and productivity across the value chain, and a complete and a very tight control over the discretionary costs. At these levels of inflation, we do recognize while we will drive all of this, it will not be possible, it may not be possible for us to just cover it from the cost actions, so we will take pricing. Pricing will be needed in selected markets and categories, notably Home Care.

It will be calibrated. It will be done in a competitive manner. Our priority will be to really protect the consumer value while also taking care of our financial model. On this point, again, it's good to repeat that in emerging markets, given the strength of our portfolio, our ability to be judicious in the way we manage pricing, we will have levers to manage it in a sensible manner is a good point. Just last two points to complete the picture on this. On brand investments, we will continue to invest behind our brands at competitive levels to sustain the growth momentum. We always said that our competitive spends will be classically in the range of 15%-16%, and therefore, we are not going back to an era of under-investing, but we will ensure that the spend is deployed effectively and in the right channels.

From an overheads perspective, you have seen that we have already delivered EUR 750 million, so almost EUR 80 million incremental savings in quarter one. We are more than confident that we will complete the EUR 800 million program in the next quarter. Given the various series of measures that we have taken to manage costs, we will drive this harder and deliver higher savings. In essence, in this range of EUR 750 million-EUR 900 million, we are comfortable to say that we can manage competitive growth, deliver on our guide of 4%-6%, and drive modest margin expansion.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Celine at JPMorgan. Go ahead, Celine.

Yes, good morning, everyone. My first question is on the balance of growth for the year. You reiterated your guidance to be at the low end of 4%-6%, and I understand that price mix will be more balanced in Home Care as we go through the year. Can you talk about, you know, first of all, that volume will be above 2% for the year? When we look at your two category Beauty and Personal Care, volume was below, in fact, that 2%. What, I mean, should we fairly expect that this will be in the range of 2% each for the year? What should drive that acceleration in the second half?

My second question is coming back on maybe Wellbeing. You said it was down low single-digit. Is it possible to understand how was it U.S. versus the rest of the world? What's happening in the rest of the world in terms of your white space opportunity? In the U.S., if you could go a bit deeper in understanding Nutrafol and Liquid I.V. performance and the go forward. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Celine. We are confident in delivering above 2% volume growth. If you look at the last nine quarters, 2024, 2025, and quarter one, 2026, our average volume growth has been 2.5%. We had a good start to the year with 2.9% in the first quarter. As I mentioned before, we have a good start of the quarter two. I feel the key point to say is just, you know, this is the result of brand equities that are strengthening. You know, more than 60% of our revenue is increasing what we call a measurable brand superiority score. We have a great innovation plan, one of the best that we have had in years, hitting the markets now.

We have one of the strongest activation platforms in years with the Personal Care sponsorship of FIFA. This give us real confidence that we will deliver volume growth for the year above 2%. Turnover-weighted market volume growth is in the territory of 1%. This clear shows outperformance of the markets when it comes to value growth, to volume growth. We expect pricing to accelerate along the year. We expect the H1 our growth to be led by volume. We expect better balance between volume and price in the second half of the year. When it comes to Beauty & Wellbeing, basically we delivered 3.6% in Q1. Our Beauty business performed really strongly, but wellbeing was dilutive for the first time since we entered the category.

You know, we had a great quarter in haircare with high single-digit growth, and we have a great quarter in prestige, where we grew 10%. Strong results across every single period of prestige in skin, in hair, and in color cosmetics, particularly at the highest end of pricing. Brands like Tatcha, Hourglass, and K18 really performing very, very well. Regarding Wellbeing, we declined 2%. Our Wellbeing business continue being fundamentally anchored in the U.S., the international business grew nicely, but it doesn't change the overall numbers of Wellbeing. OLLY grew 18% in the quarter, we have some issues in Liquid I.V. and Nutrafol that we have to sort out. In Liquid I.V., we lapped a comparator of more than 40% growth last year. There was a different phasing in the shipments prior to the summer season in U.S.

We continue seeing solid growth in the power hydration market, but our share has been a bit under pressure due to a new wave of market entrants that have reduced our share of assortment in the category. We have seen this many, many times before since we acquired Liquid I.V. in 2020. Hundreds of new brands enter in the category, but very few can sustain velocity after some period of time. Liquid I.V. is four times the size of the second player in the category. We are reinforcing our plans to regain share, we are very, very confident that we'll have a strong Q2 for Liquid I.V. In the case of Nutrafol, the brand continues having exceptional levels of retention. I have never seen anything like that in any brand I have worked in my career.

We need to address the issue of a significant increase in the cost of acquiring new customers. We have seen particularly telehealth platforms in the U.S. significantly investing in the cross-selling of GLP-1 injectables and hair fall products, most of them with significant negative side effects. We are addressing this. We are highlighting the clinical superiority and the no side effects of Nutrafol, and we expect in the case of Nutrafol the results to become better in the second half of the year. The brand was flattish in quarter one.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nicolas at Bank of America. Go ahead, Nicolas.

Good morning. Thank you. Two questions for me, please. The first one is coming back on the pricing element. You know, are you pricing enough in Asia, like Africa? I see your pricing is around 1% and the effect is down 10%. Do you think that kind of gap is sustainable or do you expect that to close in the future? Just if you could talk a bit about Dr. Squatch. We've seen a lot of slowdown in scanner data. If you could just, you know, update us on whether you think that brand is still on track to achieve their business case. Thank you.

Let me start by Dr. Squatch and then Srini will cover pricing. A good performance overall of Dr. Squatch. You know, we are seeing significant growth in body shower and in deodorants in particular. We see some slowdown in the Dr. Squatch bar segment, but you know, we expect Dr. Squatch will be part of our underlying sales growth from September, if I'm not wrong. We expect double-digit growth in Dr. Squatch going forward. We have been delisting some items that we didn't think were fundamental for the brand going forward. This is affecting some of the share reading, but in the core of Dr. Squatch, the performance is strong and we see this as a strong contributor to our growth from September onwards in the U.S. market. Srini?

From a pricing perspective, what you will see is that it's important to say that you will start to see a step up in the pricing. Quarter one low pricing also gets explained by what's happening in a few of our categories. For example, if you see in the case of India, we had deflation in tea, and therefore that has played out. That does not impact the value creation in the model there. In the last year, we'd also taken pricing corrections in our liquids part of the portfolio, which actually annualize in quarter one. In that sense, if what you see in the quarter one is the lowest point of it, we've already initiated price increases, and that's coming through right from quarter one to quarter two. We'll start to see the benefit going forward.

I'm also giving you a broader question on pricing. This also reflects some of the actions we took in Brazil and Latin America, which actually will then start to annualize again in a matter of one more quarter. Broadly speaking, from a pricing perspective, what you see is a reflection of the far end of some of the actions which we have taken in the prior year and which have given us benefits. Going forward, we are pricing up in a sensible and a competitive manner to while cover commodity when it comes to the commodity linked categories and linked to innovations in Beauty & Wellbeing, therefore you will start to see a set step up on pricing right from quarter two. As Fernando has alluded to see, you will see a better mix of it and it'll improve progressively as we go into half two.

Let me add something because I feel I have mentioned this before, but I want to repeat it to be clear. You know, the times of being uncompetitive in Unilever in any driver of demand are gone, and we will manage the business in a more volatile cost environment, focusing on volume growth, on price competitiveness, and a disciplined management of every single line of P&L, you know. We will emphasize the drivers of demand that have the highest return in the current context and ensure competitiveness in both pricing and brand marketing investment with the assumptions that Srini has made in terms of the oil price that we see and the impact that we have in cost inflation. Despite this, we continue to see the possibility of increasing our operating margin in modest terms as we have highlighted in our guidance.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff at BNP. Go ahead, Jeff.

Jeff?

Sorry, apologies for that. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Two questions if I may. You know, when you move into more inflationary environment, you know, historically, like-for-likes have always started to accelerate. Why are you still guiding to the bottom end of the 4%-6%? Because, you know, obviously the inflationary backdrop is rather different to what it was at the start of the year when you initially set the guide. That's the first question. The second question is, we've heard one of your notable peers talking about some suspicion that there may have been a degree of retailer stocking ahead of, you know, expected price increases. I'm just wondering if you've seen any evidence of that, particularly in the emerging markets business. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff. I will cover the second part, and Srini can cover the inflationary environment and the guidance. No, we have not seen any significant stocking. There have been a few countries, you know, the Easter phasing has been different, but, you know, at the same time, as I mentioned before, in the case of Liquid I.V., particularly in the U.S., our facing has a bias into quarter two. In terms of retailers, stocking, in anticipation of price increases, we have not seen anything of material impact at all, nothing in that space. On inflation, pricing?

I think two important points, Jeff. Obviously, we are going to ensure competitiveness in both volume and price. For the dynamics that I've explained that look from a, both from a Beauty point of view and Personal Care point of view, the inflation levels are in the ballpark of what we handled last year. When we take these into account, yes, it actually gives us the confidence to say that we will be able to deliver our 2% volume as well as the 4%-6% top line.

However, what we're also conscious and cognizant is that the levels of inflation which are coming through, and it's just not on a sector alone, what we are likely to see that there could be a potential larger impact on consumer and consumer sentiment, and the way inflation is going to land given the dynamics, it could also be different in different parts of the world. We will require to have some more visibility in terms of how consumer demand is playing out. We need to have some more visibility in terms of how some of the buying patterns are playing out.

Therefore, it'll be prudent for us to actually come back and revisit the guide at half. At this stage, what we have therefore said on a prudent basis is to ensure that we give confidence to the markets that we still will deliver our 4%-6%, and we will come back with a better read in a quarter's time, and then we could actually have a conversation on the full year.

I, I would like to reinforce, in the last earnings call I mentioned that we firmly believe that in the long run, our combined category and geographical footprint offer around 2% market volume growth and around 2%-3% pricing. At that time, you told me that the 2% pricing looked very far. You know, situation has changed now. You know, this is what we have seen in the last decade or so. We expect the same to play out in the long run. As, you know, most of the impact in pricing this year will be in the second half. We are cautious at this stage, and as Srini mentioned, you know, we will revise this when it comes second quarter results.

Thank you. Our next question comes from James at RBC. Go ahead, James.

Thank you, Jemma. You're presenting your updated remuneration policy to the AGM in a couple weeks' time. What's the thinking behind the annual bonus and performance share plan kicking in for sales growth well below your 4%-6% guidance?

Yeah. We are presenting the remuneration policy in the next AGM, that is the May 13th. There is a clear intention of become competitive with global companies in that space when it comes to remuneration. When it comes to the targets that we put at the beginning of the year for our annual bonus, you know, it reflected the market conditions, and it reflected what top TSR performance imply. As we mentioned before, the situation now has changed in terms of what is the potential inflationary context in which we are working. You know, while we present the targets on an annual basis, and we will change that if the next year the conditions are different for the PSP and for the annual bonus.

Maybe just one additional element to add on that. The key is really the long-term incentives. Actually, a couple of the measures in the long-term incentives are completely actually bulk of the remuneration there is linked to shareholder return and outperformance. 30% of the weighting in the long-term incentive continues to be on TSR, therefore, that takes into account any of these changes. Second, if you actually again look at it from a return on invested capital, that's again a long-term measure, which is again linked to competitive outperformance. In some ways, I don't believe that that materially changes. Anything that is coming in the remuneration policy is linked to shareholder return.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Olivier at Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, Olivier.

Thank you, Jemma. Good morning, Fernando and Srini. Two question. First, you mentioned previously that 50% of inflation is in Home Care. Can you perhaps comment on the magnitude of the price increase in Home Care you would need to take to offset the current input cost inflation that you're seeing? Regarding other divisions like Personal Care as well, should we expect a price increase? Secondly, it might be a little bit of a technical one, but notice that the share buyback is still at EUR 1.5 billion the same amount. It's going to be done by July 6th. That's going to be done over the next 45 working days. Last year it was done, same amount, but it was more like 70+ working days. Any rationale for this increase in speed? Thank you.

Well, share buyback acceleration, you know, is very clear that the markets have suffered in terms of valuation, and we are very confident in the future valuation of the company given our performance. You know, we really believe that the Unilever that we are shaping, as we mentioned when we announced the McCormick transaction, is one that has been bottom quartile in valuation with top quartile in performance. This is a good moment to make share buybacks, and it's a good moment to make share buybacks in an accelerated way. Regarding Middle East conflict, I would like to highlight a couple of things. First of all, Middle East represent for us around 2% of the revenue. Until now, we have not seen any material impact in consumption level or disruptions in the operations, you know.

Of course, the closure of the Hormuz Strait, you know, may have potential implications in terms of availability of petrochemical materials. This can be an opportunity for us, you know, because we have a very resilient supply chain, a multipolar supply chain with multiple sources of materials, and this resilience can imply a competitive advantage. You know, we see growth opportunity in laundry powders because we see local players, particularly in India and South Asia, Southeast Asia, being affected in terms of availability of materials, you know. Srini, you want to comment on the inflation in Home Care?

Just a couple of things. It is Home Care, a lot of that, of the total inflation, 70% is in emerging markets, which therefore is an opportunity for us to actually be able to take up prices. Having said that, in line with our own experience and best practices, to ensure our competitiveness, we will lead pricing where we are leaders. We will follow where we are not. The price increases we will take will always be calibrated. There will be frequent price increases, but in small doses. That ensures that we get the right balance of giving value to the consumer while protecting our margin. This could also mean that there could be a bit of a lag between when commodity starts to hit, when pricing starts to come in.

These are the elements which we'll have to continue to monitor and validate, and therefore we will fine-tune. That's also the reason we talked about all the other measures which start becoming important for us to manage the P&L, from formulation to logistics to manufacturing costs. That's the only reason at this stage, yes, we should expect pricing to be higher, but it's not going to be a one-to-one correlation. For that reason, we will not be able to give you a specific guide today. We could have a better conversation in three months time when we have better clarity of the environment and overall consumer demand.

Olivier, I would like to highlight something that Srini mentioned in the beginning of the call because, you know, the situation is different in different markets, you know. The very differently to previous global crisis we have seen, we are seeing emerging market currencies holding relatively well. You know, if you take a market like Brazil, for the moment, we have seen an appreciation of the currency that is higher than the increasing material costs that we are having. I feel, you know, the situation is very different for different Home Care business depending on the geographies in which we are operating.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Callum at Bernstein. Go ahead, Callum.

Great. Thank you very much. Just to start coming back to Home Care, please. The 6% volume growth is obviously quite remarkable. Reading your commentary, it seems like it's quite broad-based across fabric cleaning enhancers and hygiene. Maybe you could just add some color for us, please, on what are the drivers of that 6%, how much is market growth versus your share gain, what are your share gains being driven by, and are there any one-off factors in the +6% that we should be cognizant of? My second is actually unusually coming back to remuneration.

You had some very interesting commentary and examples in the annual report about your ability or probably I should say inability to attract talent, especially in the U.S. where it seems like your compensation is just not market competitive. My question is: How are you and the board thinking about this given the strategic focus on growth in the U.S. market, and could there be pressures on margins if you need to structurally improve your compensation packages? Thank you.

Thank you, Callum. Regarding Home Care, our comparator was relatively low in Home Care, but I feel what is important to highlight that in, on a two year basis, you know, we have been delivering consistently volume growth in Home Care above 3%, you know. This is a combination of a solid performance in fabric cleaning and I would say an stellar performance in home and hygiene and fabric enhancers. You know, I feel Cif grew this quarter around 15%, Domestos high single-digit. As Srini mentioned, in the case of India, we achieved the highest ever share in laundry powders. We are increasing our position in liquids strongly. We have had double-digit volume growth in Brazil in fabric cleaning, in Vietnam, in Arabia, in Turkey, high single-digit growth in Argentina.

There is a broad-based very, very strong growth, and I believe it's a combination of really restoring our pricing competitiveness in powder and at the same time accelerating the market development of liquids with a special role for the Wonder Wash that is already more than EUR 200 million in annualized sales and is already present in 41 countries. Overall, broad-based good performance in Home Care. We see momentum in the business, and we see momentum in the three pillars of Home Care, in fabric cleaning, in home hygiene, and in fabric enhancers, you know. Probably the one that is a bit lower, that is growing at around 5% is dishwasher. That is more exposed to Southeast Asia, and that's the category in which we have seen a bit less dynamism. In terms of remuneration, it's true.

As you know, we have been looking at appointing some top leaders in the organization from the outside. This is a very different Unilever in which the combination of born and bred talent and talent inflow from the outside is much more balanced than in the past. We are increasing our exposure to the U.S., and we are allocating significant capital into the U.S. It's very, very important that we are able to compete with American companies when it comes to remuneration. We don't believe that this has an impact at the global level in terms of our cost base.

We need to really increase the ceiling of remuneration in the company to be able to ensure that we can attract top-notch American talent, because at this stage and for many, many years, we have been lacking kind of leadership at the top of the organization, coming from North America, and this has to change in the future.

Maybe one small clarification on the question related to any one-offs in Home Care and otherwise. At an aggregate Unilever, there is nothing specifically to be called out. Could there be some small pockets of people buying in? Possible. Did we have some adverse impact because of Eid timing? Slightly possible. Therefore, there are always some small ins and outs in a few places. When we look at it in an aggregate, there is nothing that we would really call out as being, you know, something to point out from a quarter perspective.

I believe it's important also to highlight that our distributor covers, you know, are one of the minimums we have in history.

Absolutely.

Basically, this is showing the efficiency of our model, our operational discipline, and also the care we are taking in ensuring that the working capital across the value chain is properly managed.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Karel at Kepler. Go ahead, Karel.

Yes. Good morning. Thanks, Jemma. Two questions. The first one, now you already discussed market shares for a couple of individual markets and regions. On an aggregate level, what have your market shares done over the last quarter? The other question is a follow-up on Latin America. You discussed Brazil, but what's the trajectory going forward? Because it's been quite volatile. In 2025, things seem to be getting better. What should we anticipate for LATAM as a region going forward?

Cool. A market share have been stable in the last few readings for us, you know, after significant gains that we have had around the first three quarters of 2025. Srini can give more color on that. Regarding Latin America, as I mentioned before, you know, we have delivered 6% growth in the quarter. We already in 2025 were having excellent performance in Foods and Beauty & Wellbeing, but we have some issues in laundry and deodorants, particularly in Brazil. This has been corrected. You know, we see momentum in the business. The actions we have taken in deos are at that early stage, so we probably will see further acceleration in our Personal Care performance in Latin America.

That is very important because, you know, deodorants in particular, Latin America is a big contributor to the growth of the total Personal Care business. A lot of confidence in our development in Latin America going forward. I would say in Americas overall, because we expect also North America to be better from Q2 onward. Optimistic about it. Market shares, Srini, any other take?

Simple, three simple messages, both from a value as well as a volume shares perspective, we are relatively stable. I think that's actually quite encouraging just given the context of where we are. It also is ensuring that we are in the right space, both in terms of volume and our pricing, in the market. Point number two, we have seen some positive acceleration coming through in India, and that's understandable given the quality of the performance which has come. I think that positions us well. The other element to highlight is, again, when we see the last four weeks read in North America, we have seen a strong comeback in some of our categories, most notably in Personal Care. That again positions us well. Just a bit more color to the comment, but at an aggregate, shares are stable both on value and volume terms.

Remember that we cover around two-thirds of our revenue in market share reading, you know, that's, if you look at our 2.9% volume growth and you compare with markets growing around 1%, it's very clear that we are outperforming the market there.

Thanks. Our next question comes from David at Jefferies. Go ahead, David.

Thanks. Two for me. Just firstly on Thailand, I know not a big market, but we picked up that you lowered prices coming into April and apparently a reaction to the struggles on energy prices for the consumer. I think you explicitly made that point. Just wonder whether is that something that you're having to do in other Asian markets? Is that something you're doing proactively, or is there an element of government pressure in that market or other markets to be seen to be kind of helping consumers with the tougher environment? The second question, just coming back to the Home Care dynamics. Pricing obviously been very low for the last nine quarters, sub one or even negative for some of those quarters. Just explain the dynamics there.

Is that the input costs were deflationary, and that's what was allowing that pricing, or is it a competitive intensity dynamic? Related to that and some of the moving parts you talked about, will Home Care margins, you think, be up this year, or is that an area where you have to sacrifice profitability given where the input costs lie and you make it up in other divisions? Thank you.

Let me cover a couple of things and then, Home Care margins, Srini can take it. Thailand is a very special situation. You know, Thailand has entered into a conflict with Cambodia. Around 10%-15% of the volumes of the Thailand market were flowing into Cambodia. That has been closed. Fundamentally, this has made some players in the market to really react with significant promotional investment. We have reacted to really ensure that our competitiveness was strong. Basically, it's a very, very peculiar situation, we have seen some international players in particular reducing prices significantly. As I mentioned before, being uncompetitive in Unilever is not an option anymore, and we have reacted to that.

In the case of Home Care, yes, the context of it has been deflationary for around, I would say, one year and a half. This is, of course, changing now, and we see pricing in Home Care accelerating. We have been enjoying very, very solid growth margins in Home Care, and our operating margin has been increasing strongly. You want to add some color on that?

The additional color to that is that it's absolutely right that there has been deflationary with crude sitting at about EUR 60, which had actually started tapering off from the mid-70s, and therefore that reflected in pricing. The other element, these are the corrections which we actually put in the first half of last year. That's when we addressed some of the places where we were not competitive or we had to react to ensure we were competitive, notably Brazil and India. We took those corrective actions. In all the markets that we operate today, we are on strategic pricing in Home Care, that positions us extremely well. The way we have really articulated in terms of taking judicious pricing, calibrated pricing will position us well.

Coming back to your question on overall Home Care margins, it will be our first endeavor to ensure that each business group really delivers on its financial model. Given the magnitude of some of the commodity inflation and the lead lag between pricing and commodity, if we need to really, you know, support Home Care and make it up in some other business groups and categories and sales in the short term, we will do it. That's something that we will do in a sensible manner without impacting the competitiveness of any of the single sales.

Remember, David, also that Home Care is a category that is very sensitive to volume. We see opportunities coming from the constraints in supply in the global market. You know, our supply chain is multipolar, is very resilient. We are seeing some shortage in some local players, particularly in India and Southeast Asia, that can support our volumes, and it will make easier the passing of pricing in the future.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeremy at HSBC. Go ahead, Jeremy.

Hi. Hi, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. A couple from me. First one is perhaps you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing from a kind of consumer standpoint in some of the emerging markets, which on paper would be more affected by the higher oil price, particularly some of those around Southeast Asia. Whether there's been anything you've noticed in terms of how consumers are behaving, their consumption patterns, or whether, you know, there isn't really a lot of evidence so far. The second one is just on your margins. You talk about the margins being kind of like balanced in absolute terms between the first and the second half, which on paper would mean that the margin expansion you deliver for 2026 would be coming basically all in the second half. Given that's when the commodity pressure would hit more, could you talk about what some of the other things you've got going in your favor in the second half to make sure that you land the margin numbers that you currently expect? Thanks.

Jeremy, emerging markets, we have not seen any material changes in market volume growth at this stage. As I mentioned, we have been growing very nicely in places like Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Arabia, India, Philippines. Probably the exception to that is Thailand, where, as I mentioned in David's questions, you know, there has been a pricing issue that we have to sort out. But overall, you know, not material impacting consumption at this stage coming from the higher fuel prices that are starting to materialize in these countries. China, importantly for us, we have seen improvements in China since mid-2025. We are solidly now operating at around 5% growth. As I mentioned before, particularly our food service business that is important in the context of China. We have seen some improvements in the out-of-home channel there that is supporting the growth of the food service business. Margin?

On the margins, I think there's a bit of a confusion in the marketplace in terms of whether you talk about the absolute margins on the bps. From a full year perspective, we had delivered margins of 20%. If you looked at prior two years, there was a bit of a lot more volatility and seasonality between half one and half two, with ice creams moving away. We were in the space of saying that, look, we are likely to have that steady margin profile from a first half and second half point of view. From a first half perspective, we are trending well, given all the actions that we have taken, given the volume-led growth and our gross margin progression. We should see improvement at least of at least first half, maintaining last year's margins or a slight improvement.

That's what we're aiming for. Second half, we have discussed some of the cost challenges and some of the actions that we are taking. At this stage, we believe that we will have all the mitigants in place to cater to that and therefore the overall approach. Best at this stage would be to really focus on how we want to navigate the environment, the situation, and deliver the model on a full year basis. We could actually have a proper conversation at half one results with a better outlook on the full year.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sarah at Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, Sarah.

Yes. Good morning. Just following on from that sort of shape of the margin, should we expect a significant skew in terms of marketing investment as a percentage of revenues between H1 and H2, given the FIFA stuff? Thanks.

No, we feel very comfortable with the investment that we are having in the market now. It's, you know, we believe that we can operate between 15% and 16% in terms of brand and marketing investment. We have increased around 300 basis points our investment behind the brands in the last three years. You know, we feel comfortable with that kind of level. We measure that, of course, on a monthly basis. Our share of voice, both in the digital space and in the old media space, is solid. As I mentioned before, we will keep our competitiveness, you know, as a key metric of success for us. You know, ensuring that the enablers of demand, both in terms of pricing and brand and marketing investments are solid. Don't expect significant changes in the level of investment that we should have in the two halves.

Just to, again, a little more color, especially in the developing markets and what we have seen historically, and I'm not saying that that plays out exactly. When these kind of levels of inflation do play out, people do, as an industry, as a category, people do make calibration between pricing and investments to ensure that they give the right value to the consumers. What effectively that means that the media hit could come off significantly. Our endeavor is to ensure that we invest adequately behind our brands. We do everything to support our innovations. We will actually keep a lens if the media hit does come off. We will ensure that we are deploying our resources effectively and not really wasting some of the media money.

I feel it's important that history shows that when there is significant commodity inflation, there tends to be media deflation. We will look at, particularly in emerging markets, you know. That's something that we are looking in detail, and our procurement team is very active in that space.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tom at Deutsche Bank. Go ahead, Tom.

Yeah. Morning, everybody. Thank you. Just, on the U.S., first of all, the share data in Nielsen suggests that you're losing share of the Amazon channel. That channel seems to be growing the fastest in HPC, in Personal Care, you know, deos and bath and shower are very strong on Amazon. From your perspective, do you think you're holding share on that channel, which seems to disproportionately be growing?

On pricing on Amazon, it's not annual contracts, as I understand. In theory, you could put up pricing pretty quickly. Do you believe your pricing power or elasticity is the same on Amazon as it would be on other channels? A final one, just on a follow-up on the media, is there any element in your increase of use of influencers and KOLs, et cetera, that there is an inbuilt flexibility on what you pay them depending on volumes? Therefore, that would naturally come down a bit if volumes in, say, EMs came down, please.

Yeah. The last question, you know, yes, influencer cost is a variable cost. You know, pricing of course, it has a component of volume there. Regarding pricing in Amazon, you know, we don't see fundamental difference between our pricing ability in the Amazon channel and the offline channel. As you know, they are closely linked, because you have to ensure that there are no pricing conflict across channels, so we don't see any fundamental issue there. You want to talk about shares?

What we really follow, Tom, is Circana has been more representative of some of the share trends, whether it is in Amazon or broader e-commerce, d-commerce. Therefore, progressively in the last 12, 18 months, we have validated the database, and that is what we actually look at. The reads that we see on that continue to show much better. There is a divergence which is happening between the two data sources. At an aggregate, we are not seeing some of the elements that you have spoken about, but happy to engage with you offline to go into further details.

Yeah, we are, you know, just, I don't have the latest number, but our growth in Amazon, it has been in the high-teens, for 2025. I need to check exactly what was in quarter one. I don't have that data here.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Guillaume at UBS. Go ahead, Guillaume.

Thank you very much. Good morning Fernando, Srini, and Jemma. Two questions from me, please. First one is on Europe. Kind of second consecutive quarter now that both USG and UVG are a bit soft. Wondering if it's mostly down to lower category growth or if you're also seeing some maybe challenges in terms of your market share development in an environment that seems to be highly promotional. Maybe if you can unpack this performance for us. I guess looking ahead, do you expect similar trends in Europe, or are you hopeful you can go back to positive USG and UVG in the next quarter? Then my second question is on Foods.

Appreciate it's really early days, Fernando, I'm wondering how the business has been reacting following the announcement of the deal with McCormick. Between now and the completion of the deal, I mean, how to ensure that Foods doesn't get distracted too much by, you know, the carve-out, I'm sure for some employees, some job uncertainty. I guess, what will be the focus for Foods in the next four to five quarters? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Guillaume. Well, Europe, the market has been subdued. You know, we have had very good share progress in Home Care and Personal Care in the last, you know, nine to 10 quarters. Foods has been a bit more difficult. It's 40% of our revenue there. We have seen some increase in promotional pressure in Foods, and that has put some negative impact on pricing that is affecting us, you know. We expect our performance in Europe to improve along the year. We are really banking in a very strong quarter two in Personal Care with all the FIFA activitation that in Europe will be very significant. We are starting to roll out some of our most successful Beauty & Wellbeing brands into Europe.

You know, we don't expect Europe to become a key engine of growth in the future, but we expect a slight recovery despite the fact that the impact of energy prices in Europe can be significant in terms of consumer purchasing power and confidence. A slight improvement expected in Europe going forward. Regarding Foods, we have of course been very active communicating the transaction internally to our employees. I was recently in Netherlands having a town hall with all our employees there, in the central food team and talking to the whole Foods team across the globe. I believe there is some real excitement about the potential that the McCormick transaction offer for our people. It was very clear that Foods was not a key priority in terms of portfolio development within Unilever.

Knorr will be the number one brand in the enlarged McCormick, and Hellmann's will be the number two brand in the enlarged McCormick. The concept of building a real global flavor powerhouse with significant revenue synergies, in what I call a growth separation of Foods, I believe has resonated with our people. Of course, there is some anxiety, and, you know, we are working very aligned with McCormick to ensure that we shorten timeframes in every single work stream. We are working very collaboratively with the McCormick leadership team. Separation work streams are all in motion. The integration plan with McCormick is being managed in conjunction between the two companies. This week, the McCormick leadership team is here in Europe. We have been talking to them. They have been presenting to some of you, I believe, also. You know, we are very, very happy with the progress that we are doing, and the intention is to shorten our timings as much as we can.

Thank you. Our final question comes from Ed at Rothschild. Go ahead, Ed.

Yes, thanks very much. A couple of ones just looking at the Asia Pac and LATAM, you referenced Beauty & Wellbeing, strong performance in LATAM. Also, Beauty & Wellbeing driving growth in China. Just trying to understand, you know, what parts of the Beauty & Wellbeing are growing there. Is it the more premium sides of the business? Is it largely online-led? Just to sort of understand, you know, how you're positioned there. Then as we think about a period of, you know, more macro uncertainty, how should we think about the 1 Unilever markets in that context? Do you feel more confident about being able to navigate potential uncertainty or macro uncertainty given, you know, the way you now run those 1 Unilever markets?

Yeah. Thank you, Ed. Yeah, performance in Beauty & Wellbeing in emerging markets has been strong. As I mentioned before, our hair business grew high single digits at total level. That was driven by a strong performance in emerging markets. India grew 8%. you know, I feel in Latin America, Beauty & Wellbeing was I believe in double-digit growth. We are seeing a strong growth also in Middle East and in Southeast Asia. I feel the performance has been strong. We have an excellent performance of Dove Hair. Dove Hair is growing 15%. It initiated with the relaunch in the U.S. that is performing extremely well. Now this relaunch is roll out across all our geographies.

Vaseline growing very, very strongly, close to 10%, and Sunsilk growing 8% in Beauty & Wellbeing. If you look at the top three brands of our Beauty & Wellbeing business, you know, Dove Hair 15%, Vaseline 9%, if I'm not wrong, and Sunsilk 8%. Performance is strong. It's strong in different price points, particularly in the upper mass to premium segment. Also, as I mentioned before, you know, our prestige business in the U.S. also doing very, very well. Overall, good performance in Beauty & Wellbeing, particularly in emerging markets. Regarding 1 Unilever markets, we are very happy with the performance there. You know, it has been one of our fastest-growing cluster last year. Performance in quarter one continues being strong.

We are running in 1 Unilever markets a much more tighter portfolio. Usually in every market in what we call 1 Unilever that are markets 25 onwards, we run a portfolio between six and eight brands. In the quarter one, we deliver above 2% volume once again. We believe that it could be, as I mentioned before, opportunities for us in these markets. When there are supply constraints in the market, there are two things that happen. Resilient supply chain, like the one of Unilever, can build some competitive advantage to drive more volume. Second, the ability to pass pricing is higher.

Thank you very much.

Good. I would like to close with a couple of messages. You know, the first one is that we started the year, as I mentioned, with a strong volume growth, and our confidence in delivering above 2% volume growth for the year is reinforced by the fact that we are having a strong start to Q2 with practically April finished now. Pricing will definitely accelerate along the year. The majority of our cost inflation is in Home Care and is in emerging markets, the frequency of pricing and the ability to pass pricing in these regions is higher. The cost environment is volatile, we will manage the business with clear focus on volume and ensuring competitiveness in both price and BMI.

As I mentioned before, we will emphasize the driver of demand with the highest return depending on the environment. We are really making good progress regarding the food separation. Of course, there are elements that are not completely in our control, like the antitrust clearance, the timing of the antitrust clearance, and the timing of the SEC approval. All the work streams are in motion. We are working as one team with the McCormick leadership team, and we expect to really accelerate the timing of separation and integration. We are reaffirming our guidance. We continue expecting our top line to grow within the range of 4%-6%, most probably at the bottom end of that range.

We expect, despite the increase in commodity inflation that we expect hitting our P&L in the second half of the year to deliver modest operating margin, we will use every single level of the P&L, from formulation flexibility to productivity to hiring freeze to tighter overheads management to ensure that we are able to deliver the modest operating margin expansion that is in our guidance. With that, thank you very much.

Hello, and welcome to Unilever's full year results announcement. Thank you for joining us. In a moment, Srini Phatak, our Chief Financial Officer, will take you through a detailed breakdown of Unilever results for 2025. But before that, I would like to share with you a few reflections on our performance last year. Let me start by saying that we have delivered a solid year, fully in line with our commitments despite challenging conditions. When I took over as CEO, I made clear that one of my biggest priorities was to ensure that in Unilever, we could both perform and transform. 2025 has demonstrated our ability to [ evolve ]. We delivered a good performance, delivering competitive volume growth, positive mix and gross margin expansion, with sequential improvement throughout the year. We sharpened the portfolio. The successful demerger of Ice Cream combined with 10 deals, including acquisitions like Minimalist, Wild, and Dr. Squatch and the disposal of several nonstrategic brands means that we have rotated 15% of the total portfolio in 2025. We have significantly elevated the offering of our brands, stepping up their functionality, their aesthetics, their sensorials. Strong innovation plans and a decisive shift to social first demand generation models also contributed to a strong improvement in the [indiscernible] brand superiority scores of our brands, a key reason for our ability to outperform markets. This is empowered by another increase in our brand and marketing investment. We improved our execution, reflected by our continuing strength in developed markets and our improved performance in emerging markets, including the successful operational results in key markets like Indonesia and China. We have also acted decisively to correct performance gaps in areas like Home Care and Deodorants in Brazil or U.S. [ Hair ] businesses, in which we expect significant improvements during 2026. We drove cost discipline and improved overheads by 50 basis points through the continuing delivery of our productivity program that is significantly ahead of schedule. We are moving at a speed to build a business that drives desire and scale in our brands and execution excellence. There is much still to do, but we have entered 2026 as a simpler, sharper, more focused business, better able to capture the many growth opportunities that exist across our categories and our channels. Our performance in 2025 give us added confidence that we are on the right track, as Srini will now highlight in taking you through the numbers. Srini?

Thank you, Fernando. Before I turn to the results, just a brief point on the basis of reporting. All the figures that I refer today are on a continuing basis, which excludes Ice Cream. Comparative figures have been restated to reflect the demerger of the Ice Cream business. So all growth, margin and cash metrics are presented on a like-for-like basis. For the full year, underlying sales growth was 3.5%, with volumes at 1.5% and price at 2%. Looking beyond the single year, performance over a 2-year period highlights the underlying momentum of the business, particularly in Beauty & Wellbeing, Home Care and Personal Care, we delivered compounded annual volume growth of 3.6%, 3.1% and 2.1%, respectively. In 2025, we saw a clear sequential improvement through the year, with quarter 4 growth at 4.2%, with a step-up in volumes to 2.1% and pricing at 2%. This reflects our disciplined execution and a sharper focus on volume-led growth. Our 30 Power Brands, which represent more than 78% of the group turnover, continued to grow ahead of the average, delivering 4.3% underlying sales growth for the full year, with volumes up 2.2%, in line with our medium-term growth algorithm. This performance has been sustained over time, with Power Brands delivering a 2-year compounded annual growth rate of 5%, including 3.4% volume growth. Power Brands have the first [ call our ] incremental resources, with 100% of our incremental BMI in 2025 being invested behind them. The performance we see reflects the impact of those prioritization choices. Momentum strengthened further in the fourth quarter with Power Brands delivering growth of 5.8%, driven by volume growth of 3.5%. Beauty & Wellbeing delivered balanced growth across the year, with underlying sales growth of 4.3% evenly split between volume of 2.2% and price at 2.1%. Dove, Vaseline and our premium brands continued to outperform, delivering double-digit growth, reflecting the strength of our innovation and focused execution. Category performance varied across the year, reflecting different stages of portfolio reshaping, innovation delivery and execution. Hair Care was flat overall, with pricing offset by lower volumes. Within this context, Dove Hair continued to deliver double-digit growth, driven by the rollout of its fiber repair range across multiple markets. Total hair care performance in North America was flat, reflecting portfolio simplification actions, while softer market conditions in some emerging markets weighed on volumes. Core skincare delivered mid-single-digit growth. Vaseline again stood out, delivering double-digit growth for the third consecutive year and becoming our eighth largest brand. Wellbeing remained a key growth engine, delivering double-digit growth for the year, led by volume. Liquid I.V. and Nutrafol both delivered double-digit growth, with Liquid I.V. reaching 2 important milestones: becoming a billion-dollar brand and achieving a record U.S. household penetration of over 18%. OLLY delivered high single-digit growth, and it is now an over $500 million brand. Prestige Beauty delivered low single-digit growth. Hourglass and K18 continued to grow double digit, and Dermalogica and Paula's Choice returned to growth in the second half. In the fourth quarter, Beauty and Wellbeing growth stepped up to 4.7%, with volumes up 2.8%. This performance underpins a 2-year compounded annual volume growth rate of 3.3%, reflecting improved execution and a stronger performance across several key Asia Pacific Africa markets as the year progressed. While market growth moderated in Wellbeing, we delivered volume growth above 5% for the quarter, continuing to materially outperform the market. Meanwhile, our core portfolio delivered improved growth with Hair Care at mid-single-digit growth. From a profitability perspective, underlying operating profit in Beauty & Wellbeing was EUR 2.5 billion in 2025, with an underlying operating margin at 19.2%, down 20 basis points year-on-year. This reflects a significant improvement in overhead efficiency, with increased brand and marketing investments behind Power Brands and premium innovations supporting long-term sustainable growth. Personal Care delivered underlying sales growth of 4.7% for the full year, with a much stronger competitive performance driven by the momentum in the United States. The U.S. remains a big growth engine and a benchmark for the execution across the business group. Price contributed 3.6%, largely reflecting commodity-driven increases, with volumes growing 1.1%, supported by premium innovations, particularly in Dove, which delivered high single-digit growth. Strong volume growth in developed markets led by North America more than offset softer conditions in Latin America where volumes declined, but the performance remained ahead of the category. Deodorants delivered low single-digit growth, supported by both price and volume. Dove again led performance, delivering double-digit growth, with scaling of whole body deos across 15 markets, reinforcing our leadership in the category. In the fourth quarter, growth improved sequentially to mid-single digit as actions to address product format mix in Brazil began to gain traction. Skin Cleansing delivered mid-single-digit growth led by price and continued premiumization. Oral Care also delivered mid-single-digit growth, driven by strong performances in CloseUp and Pepsodent with premium whitening and naturals innovations in Asia Pacific, Africa. During the year, we further strengthened Personal Care's portfolio through the acquisitions of Wild and Dr. Squatch. These acquisitions enhance our exposure to premium segments, and are expected to contribute meaningfully to growth over time. In the fourth quarter, underlying sales growth remained strong at 5.1%, led by North America and Asia Pacific, Africa. Growth was driven by price and supported by positive volume, reflecting the positive trajectory of the business and the sustainability of U.S.-led momentum. From a profitability perspective, underlying operating profit in Personal Care was EUR 3 billion. Underlying operating margin increased by 50 basis points to 22.6%, driven by improvements in gross margin and overhead efficiency. We continue to invest behind our brands, most notably in the U.S. and in the premium segments, in line with our strategic priorities. Home Care delivered underlying sales growth of 2.6% for the year, with growth primarily being volume-led at 2.2% and a modest contribution from price of 0.4%. Performance improved sequentially through the year, supported by strong growth momentum in Europe, driven by premium innovations and improved execution and performance in India. Fabric Cleaning was flat as strong performance in Europe was offset by a softer performance in Brazil. The corrective pricing actions were taken earlier in the year to restore competitiveness. Wonder Wash continues to go from strength to strength, following its launch in 2024, and it's now established in more than 30 markets. This demonstrates the speed at which we can roll out high-impact innovations at scale. Home and hygiene delivered mid-single-digit growth led by Cif and Domestos. Growth was supported by premium innovations, including Cif Infinite Clean and the continued rollout of Domestos Power Foam beyond Europe, extending our leadership in hygiene formats. Fabric enhancers delivered high single-digit growth led by volume. Comfort, one of our billion euro brands performed particularly well, supported by premium formats and fragrance led innovation with strong momentum across several emerging markets. In the fourth quarter, growth accelerated to 4.7% driven by 4% volume growth, underlining the recovery of the business. India was a key contributor to this momentum, with Home Care delivering mid-single-digit volume growth, led by strong performance in liquids across Fabric Wash and Household Care, and reaching its highest ever market share. Brazil, Home Care's second largest market, also returned to growth in the quarter, further supporting the overall improvement. From a profitability perspective, underlying operating profit in Home Care was EUR 1.7 billion, with an underlying operating margin of 14.9%, up 40 basis points year-on-year. This reflects improved overhead efficiencies and disciplined brand investments focused on fewer high-impact innovations, partly offset by a decline in gross margin. Foods delivered underlying sales growth of 2.5% for the year, with 0.8% from volume and 1.7% from price. Growth was ahead of the market, driven by strong performance in emerging markets, while developed markets were broadly flat amid weaker consumer demand. Against that backdrop, this represents a solid performance, with clear evidence of competitiveness across our core brands. Hellmann's continued to perform well, delivering mid-single-digit volume rate growth for the year. This was supported by the continued strength of its flavored mayonnaise range, now scaled across more than 30 markets and established as a EUR 100 million platform, demonstrating our ability to premiumize at scale. Cooking Aids delivered low single-digit growth, driven primarily by price. Knorr grew low single digit, with softer retail conditions in developed markets offset by volume and price growth in emerging markets. Unilever Food Solutions was flat, volumes were positive in North America, offset by declines in China, reflecting a weaker out-of-home consumption. We expect the UFS performance in China to improve during 2026. In the fourth quarter, underlying sales growth was 2.3%, with volumes up 1.3%, reflecting a market environment that remained subdued into year-end. From a profitability perspective, Foods delivered a record year, with underlying operating margin increased by 130 basis points to 22.6%, the highest level achieved by the business group. Underlying operating profit was EUR 2.9 billion. This reflected portfolio pruning, disciplined pricing, productivity gains in gross margin, tight overhead control, alongside continued focused brand investments in line with our food strategy. We delivered balanced growth across developed and emerging markets despite a more uneven macro and consumer backdrop through the year. This highlights the advantage of our geographic footprint. In developed markets, we grew ahead of our categories despite consumer conditions softening, particularly in the second half. In emerging markets, performance improved throughout the year, reflecting decisive actions we took to address challenges, alongside improved execution, a step-up in innovation and a more focused channel execution as well as an improving trading environment in several key markets. Developed markets, which represent 41% of the group turnover, delivered underlying sales growth of 3.6% for the year, a sustained outperformance versus the market. Growth moderated in the second half as the macro and the consumer backdrop softened, with fourth quarter underlying sales growth of 1.7%, with slower market growth in both U.S. and Europe. North America was a standout performer. Underlying sales grew 5.3% for the year, with volumes contributing 3.8%, reflecting continued share gains and the benefits of multiyear reshaping of our portfolio towards Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care. Premium innovations supported by strong retail execution continue to underpin growth, allowing us to outperform the markets despite more subdued consumer conditions. In the fourth quarter, growth moderated as category conditions softened across the segments. Despite this, our portfolio performance remained resilient, reflecting the strength of our portfolio and execution. Europe delivered low single-digit underlying sales growth for the year. Home Care and Personal Care performed well, supported by the volume growth and the continued rollout of Wonder Wash and whole body deodorants. This was partly offset by softer conditions in Foods, where we continue to outperform the market. Growth across Europe was uneven, with good momentum in France and Italy offset by softness in Germany. In the fourth quarter, underlying sales were flat, in line with the slowing market environment, but our performance remained robust relative to the categories. Emerging markets, which account for 59% of the group turnover, delivered underlying sales growth of 3.5% for the year. Performance improved sequentially through the year, with growth accelerating to 5.8% in the fourth quarter including 3.2% volume growth, reflecting the impact of decisive actions taken earlier in the year, alongside a return to growth in Latin America. Asia Pacific Africa delivered underlying sales growth of 4.6% for the year, with volumes contributing 3%, and price 1.6%, reflecting strengthening of execution across several key markets. Momentum strengthened in the fourth quarter, with APA delivering underlying sales growth of 6.9%, driven by volume growth of 5.7%. In India, underlying sales grew 4% for the year, with volumes up 3%. Growth accelerated in the fourth quarter to 5% with volumes up 4%, reflecting market share gains, a gradual recovery in market growth and the normalization of the trade environment following GST adjustments in the third quarter. Performance was led by our premium Personal Care portfolio and strong execution in laundry liquids. In Indonesia, underlying sales grew at 4% for the year, with a sharp recovery in the second half following a comprehensive reset of the business. Alongside price stabilization and trade stock normalization, we stepped up innovation and significantly increased social-first brand activation, strengthening relevance and demand across our core categories. As execution improved, availability and affordability were sharpened. The performance stepped up materially, with growth accelerating to 17% in the fourth quarter against soft prior competitors. In China, underlying sales growth were flat for the year with clear improvement in the second half, including mid-single-digit growth in the fourth quarter. Actions to reset the business, including strengthening of go-to-market execution and accelerating premiumization supported this improvement. This was led by Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care despite overall market growth remaining weak. In Latin America, underlying sales grew 0.5% for the year, reflecting a broad-based market slowdown amid ongoing macro and political uncertainty. Price growth of 5.9% largely offset a volume decline of 5.1%, with elevated price elasticity continuing to wane on volumes as consumer demand remained under pressure. The region, however, returned to growth in the fourth quarter. For the year, Beauty & Wellbeing and Foods both delivered low single-digit growth. In Foods, performance was supported by Hellmann's, led by the continued strength of the flavored mayonnaise range in Brazil. In Beauty & Wellbeing, growth reflected improved execution and the strength of the core brands. During the year, we took targeted actions in Brazil to restore competitiveness, including corrective pricing in fabric cleaning, and adjustments to the format mix in Deodorants. Home Care returned to growth in the fourth quarter, providing a clear indication that these actions are beginning to gain traction. One Unilever markets delivered mid-single-digit growth with positive volume and price, and were accretive to both group sales and profit growth in 2025. This performance reflects the benefits of radical prioritization and sharper focus in our smaller markets. Turnover for the full year was EUR 50.5 billion, down 3.8% versus the prior year. This was driven by significant currency headwinds, with FX reducing turnover by 5.9%. The currency impact was broad-based, reflecting a weaker U.S. dollar, alongside depreciation across a number of emerging market currencies, including several of our large markets. This was only marginally offset by strength in a small number of currencies. Excluding currency, turnover increased by 2.3%, driven by underlying sales growth of 3.5%, partly offset by portfolio actions as we continued to sharpen the business. The net impact from acquisitions and disposals was negative 1.2%. Within this, acquisitions contributed 0.6%, driven by Minimalist, Wild, and Dr. Squatch, all performing in line with their acquisition business cases. This was more than offset by a disposal impact of 1.8%, reflecting the exits of Unilever Russia and the China water purification business in 2024. Disposals of Conimex, The Vegetarian Butcher, and Kate Somerville were completed during 2025. Underlying operating margin expanded by 60 basis points to 20% in 2025, reflecting a structurally strong margin profile. Gross margin contributed positively, expanding by 20 basis points and marking the third consecutive year of gross margin expansion. Importantly, following the Ice Cream's demerger, gross margin now is at structurally higher level of 46.9%. This reflects a fundamental shift in the shape of the group, alongside improvements in mix, price and sustained delivery of savings. Our productivity program and the ongoing cultural shift enabled a further 50 basis points reduction in the overheads. Since the program began, we have delivered more than EUR 670 million of savings and are well ahead of the plan. We remain on track to complete the EUR 800 million program in 2026. Brand and marketing investment increased by 10 basis points to 16.1% of turnover, the highest percentage in over a decade, and 300 basis points higher than 4 years ago. This reflects a clear choice to prioritize investment behind our strongest brands and innovations, consistent with our focus on sustainable growth and long-term value creation. 100% of the incremental BMI was allocated behind Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care. Underlying operating profit was EUR 10.1 billion, a decline of 1.1% versus prior year. In line with our multiyear priority, in 2025, we delivered hard currency underlying earnings growth. Underlying EPS rose to EUR 3.08, up 0.7% versus the prior year, with sales growth and margin expansion together contributing 6.5% to EPS growth. Net finance costs were broadly flat year-on-year, reflecting active balance sheet management and disciplined funding decisions. Net finance costs represented 2.1% of average net debt, underscoring the resilience of our financing structure following the Ice Cream separation. Tax contributed positively, adding 1.3% to underlying earnings per share as the underlying effective tax rate decreased slightly to 25.7%. This reduction reflects the mix of earnings and the benefits of local tax optimization measures. Our share buyback programs contributed 1.5% to underlying EPS. These positives were morely offset by currency, which had a negative impact of 8.8% on the underlying earnings per share. On a constant currency basis, underlying earnings per share grew by 9.5%. Following the separation of Ice Cream, an 8 for 9 share consolidation was implemented in December 2025 to ensure comparability of earnings per share, share price and dividends, with prior periods being restated accordingly. Sustainability remains a fundamental part of Unilever's strategy and is managed with the same discipline as our financial performance, with clear accountability and a direct link to remuneration. In 2025, we reached an important milestone on plastics delivering both on our multiyear targets due this year. This reflects sustained focus and investments and demonstrates our ability to deliver against complex commitments. Free cash flow for the year was EUR 5.9 billion, representing 100% cash conversion. Compared with the previous [ year's ], free cash flow was around EUR 400 million lower, reflecting costs associated with the Ice Cream demerger, including separation-related tax on disposals. Excluding these demerger-related items, free cash flow was EUR 6.3 billion, underlining the cash generating strength of the business. Net debt at the year-end was EUR 23.1 billion, an absolute reduction of EUR 1.4 billion following the Ice Cream separation. This reflects the combined impact of cash generation and the demerger offset by dividends, acquisitions and share buybacks. Net debt to underlying EBITDA closed at 2x, remaining within our target range and consistent with our capital structure objectives. Turning to returns. Our underlying return on invested capital was 19%, placing us in the top 1/3 of the sector. Our ROIC benefited by around 100 basis points from Ice Cream demerger, reflecting the higher quality and the lower capital intensity of the group following the separation. Overall, ROIC remains firmly in the high teens, which we continue to view as a key guardrail for capital allocation and a core pillar of a multiyear value creation model. Our capital allocation is clear and disciplined and remains focused on 3 priorities: growth and productivity, actively shaping the portfolio and delivering attractive capital returns. Starting with growth and productivity. We continue to invest at scale where it matters most. Brand and marketing investment was 16.1% of turnover, while capital expenditure was 3.1% of turnover. Importantly, more than half the CapEx is directed towards productivity and margin initiatives, reflecting our focus on strengthening the underlying economics of the business while continuing to support our brands and innovation agenda. Turning to the portfolio, we remain value-focused. We are continuing to simplify the portfolio through targeted disposals while pursuing bolt-on acquisitions aligned to our strategy. Our focus remains on Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, with emphasis on premium segments, digitally-native brands and e-commerce exposure, particularly in the U.S. and India. Finally, on capital returns, we returned EUR 6 billion to shareholders in 2025, comprising EUR 4.5 billion in dividends and EUR 1.5 billion in share buybacks. This reflects our capital allocation priorities, with a clear preference to maintain in principle a 70-30 balance between dividends and share buybacks. Taken together, this provides consistency and visibility, supported by strong cash generation and disciplined execution. We continue to transform the portfolio in 2025, allocating capital towards higher growth premium segments, while exiting businesses that no longer fit our strategic direction. Taken together, 2025 represents a step change in portfolio transformation. With the Ice Cream demerger and 10 transactions completed or announced during the year, we materially increased the focus and the growth profile of the group. On the acquisition side, the additions of Magnum, Dr. Squatch, and Wild strengthen our exposure to Beauty, Wellbeing and Personal Care, premium segments and digitally native e-commerce led brands, with particular emphasis on the U.S. and India. At the same time, we were decisive in simplifying the portfolio. We completed exits from lower growth on noncore businesses, including Conimex, The Vegetarian Butcher, and Kate Somerville and announced further disposals such as Graze, Indonesia [ tea ] and the Home Care business in Colombia and Ecuador. These actions further sharpen the focus of the group and reduce complexity. The Ice Cream demerger is the most significant step in this portfolio transformation. It reflects a deliberate decision to simplify the group, increase the strategic focus, enabling both Unilever and the Ice Cream business to pursue testing strategies, capital structures and growth priorities more effectively. Overall, the scale and pace of change in 2025 underlines that this is a different Unilever, one that is actively transforming its portfolio to drive higher-quality growth and stronger returns over time. Turning to 2026. Our outlook reflects the progress we have made and a disciplined focus on what we can control in a slower market environment. On growth, we expect underlying sales growth for the full year to be at the bottom end of our multiyear range of 4% to 6%. We expect underlying volume growth of at least 2%, maintaining focus on our volume-led growth and outperforming slower markets. On margins, we are confident of a further modest improvement to the underlying operating margin. Our structurally strong gross margin will continue to benefit from value chain interventions, fueling ongoing reinvestment into our brands. In 2026, we expect inflationary pressures in select commodities with the overall inflation being lower than 2025. As before, margin progression is an outcome of our choices, not the short-term objective in its own right. On capital returns, we have announced a new share buyback of EUR 1.5 billion, reflecting confidence in the strength of our balance sheet and the consistency of our capital allocation framework. We also continue to expect sustained attractive and growing dividends, supported by strong cash generation. With that, over to you, Fernando.

Thank you, Srini. As we look ahead, we expect conditions to remain challenging, with soft markets in many parts of the world. Our confidence in the future stems from the significant progress we made in 2025, and we entered '26 as a very different looking business, one that is not only simpler and more focused, but also now bid to deliver consistently. We are building a sales and marketing machine founded on 3 fundamental shifts that transcend our whole business with 7 clear growth priorities. Let me take them in turn. The 3 fundamental shifts encompass our brands, our organization and our people. Our brands are benefiting from a desired scale model that is elevating every stage of the journey, from product development right through to the way we reach and engage with consumers, to the way we execute in both off-line and online retail. Where fully deployed, we have seen incredibly strong performances in brands Dove, Vaseline, Persil and Hellmann's. We are making our organization fit for the AI age, transforming every link in the value chain, particularly around the consumer. That means deploying AI to supercharge demand generation, scaling and hyper targeting marketing content, partnering with consumer faces, LLMs, and working with retailers on agentic shopping models, creating a future-fit model for how our brands are discovered and shopped. And our people are embracing a new play-to-win philosophy approach where the demands may be greater, but our targets are sharper, accountability is clearer, potential rewards are higher and with the highest ever differentiation between best and worst performers. When it comes to our growth priorities, this will be increasingly familiar to you by now. They involve honing in and double down on our biggest growth opportunities across categories with more Beauty, more Wellbeing, more Personal Care, across geographies with U.S. and India as clear and core markets for Unilever, and our growth segments and channels focusing on premiumizing the portfolio and further increasing our exposure to e-commerce. These 7 areas are already driving a large proportion of our growth. And with the additional focus on investment we are bringing to them, we see opportunities to go considerably further. I look forward to going deeper on these fundamental shifts and growth priorities at next week's Cagny conference in Orlando. Nowhere does the robustness and validity of these transformation and fundamental shifts and strategic growth priorities show up more clearly than in the strength and quality of our innovation program. You have seen in our results today, how effective our premium innovation is when we create or grow categories, like powder hydration, short-cycle laundry, probiotics in surface cleaning, flavored mayo, all powered by our superior science in residual aesthetics and elevated sensorials. We are doubling down on this approach in 2026 with an excellent pilot of innovation, leveraging our multiyear scientific streams and introducing new ones. And many of our Personal Care innovations will be activated alongside our sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup 2026, an exciting moment for us and our brands. A simpler, more focused company is not an end in itself, it is all about delivery, consistent delivery. That's what we are concentrated on. And while there is a lot more to do and more to prove, we are confident that '26 will be another big step forward in moving to a model and an approach that is built for delivery. The key elements are all there. First, our mantra is and will remain volume growth, positive wins and gross margin expansion. We are laser-focused on these very clear metrics. This is a route to sustain success for Unilever and to top for shareholder returns, and we will continue to invest accordingly to achieve these objectives. Second, with the well-executed separation of Ice Cream now behind us, and with other recent bolt-on deals successfully completed, we have a sharper portfolio radically focused around our strongest categories and our biggest brand. Third, with our emerging markets strengthening and developed market continuing to outperform, we have a real opportunity now to leverage one of Unilever's most distinctive assets, our global strength. Fourth, our capital allocation priorities, as you heard from Srini, are crystal clear, focused on driving growth and productivity by supporting our brands, sharpening our portfolio and maximizing margin initiatives, while at the same time, delivering strong capital returns to shareholders. And finally, the strength of the organizational change at Unilever over recent years can hardly be overstated. The heavy lifting has been done. This is now a new business, simpler, leaner more accountable, with P&L ownership now squarely in the hands of our category-led business groups, all back up by differentiated reward to the right of performance. All these elements give us the confidence that we are moving towards a model and an organization built for consistent delivery even in markets that will remain tough. Thank you for your attention. We look forward now to taking your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Celine at JPMorgan. Celine? Moving to the second question, Warren. The second question comes from Warren Ackerman at Barclays.

Yes. Fernando, Srini, Jemma, Warren here at Barclays. Can you hear me okay? [indiscernible] an echo.

Yes, we can, Warren.

So -- okay, super. So first one, Fernando, can you talk a bit about the emerging market outlook for 2026? I think about the big 4: Brazil, India, China, Indonesia. Can you maybe hit on some of the key topics that people are interested in? The fix on Brazil deals, for example. Is China and Indonesia proper reset? Is it done? How should we think about volumes in '26? That's the first one. Second one, another geo one. It's on the U.S., obviously slowed versus Q3. Can you talk a little bit, Fernando, about where you see U.S. category growth? Any signs of price pressure in the U.S. and your confidence about the '26 delivery, what kind of innovation pipeline, what kind of delivery should we expect out of the U.S. in '26? And just quickly, if I can squeeze in a housekeeping for Srini. Can you just tell us where the productivity savings landed, Srini? Is the EUR 800 million done? And what should we think about productivity-wise in '26?

Thank you, Warren, and good morning, everyone. Well, let me start saying that we consider our strength in emerging markets a significant long-term competitive advantage given the exposure to give us to better population growth rate, [ worse ] margin expansion, et cetera. And we have a portfolio in emerging markets that is really diversified in terms of geographies, category segment, price points, and this gives us resilience against volatility. We are very, very confident in our step up in emerging markets. We are seeing now -- with the exception of LatAm, in which the market volume growth is flattish. We are seeing now growth in Asia Pacific Africa, in the [indiscernible] of 3% volume growth for the market. And our performance is improving across the board -- in India is improving, both in terms of economic backgrounds and the fundamentals of business, particularly the strengthening of our brand equities, our mission brands, operating scores in India are improving across the board, our execution, particularly in rural areas and traditional trade, independent trade is also improving. We are growing shares, particularly in Home Care, we have achieved that, as you know, is 40% of our business there. We have achieved the highest ever share there in the last reading. China is slowly getting better. Growth has accelerated in second half 2025. We have made some significant interventions in the route to market of e-commerce. More work to do there, but we expect a better year in China in 2026. In Indonesia, we are very pleased with the renewed leadership team that we have put in place. They have done the right thing to reset the fundamentals of the business. We are now operating with very, very historic low levels of stock in our distributors, that has removed any fundamental issue of [ churn ] and price conflict we have had in the past. We have relaunched our 8 top brands in the market. And of course, in quarter 4, we were benefiting for a very weak comparable. But I feel the metric that we look obsessively in Indonesia is an improvement in our sales run rates. And every single quarter, we have been selling more in Indonesia in the last 4 quarters. Other markets, like Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Arabia are all also improving. We have significant operations in other countries. So all this is growing nicely. Regarding LatAm, markets remained flattish. We have seen in the second half of last year around 0% growth. Volume growth in Latin America, macroeconomic remained challenging in Mexico and Brazil. But we are pleased with the return to growth in quarter 4 led by the great momentum in Foods. We have a flying Hellmann's there. Solid growth in Beauty & Wellbeing. I'm very, very pleased with the fast reaction in Home Care to the corrective actions that we have put in pricing to restore competitiveness. This is starting to bear fruits there. We expect improvements in Deos in the next few months. Actions have been put in place to rebalance our investment, increasing the one in aerosol relative to the one in contract applicator formats. Reigniting growth in aerosol is absolutely critical, given the higher revenue per use and the higher profit per use. We are getting a lot of support from retailers in this aspect. We are resetting planograms in thousands of stores and growth region, and we expect Deos in Latin America to be a key contributor to growth from quarter 2 onwards. So in summary, optimistic about emerging markets in 2026. In U.S., let me start saying that our volume growth in North America in the last 3 years has been 3.9% in 2023, 4.2% in 2024, 3.8% in 2025. So this is a very consistent performance despite tough markets, probably one of the best performances in the sector. And this is a reflection of a profound transformation we have done in our portfolio, the setup of a U.S. for U.S. innovation model and a huge focus in a strengthening relationship with retailers there. Quarter 4 had a soft start, but we are encouraged by the fact that the market has rebounded in December and January. We have -- we are off to a good start in North America in 2026. Of course, we have seen some slowdown in Wellbeing. Wellbeing in North America in the quarter 4 delivered around 5% volume growth when it was in double digit in first 3 quarters, we have a couple of issues there. Fundamentally, the share of assortment of Liquid I.V. in a key retailer of the club channel, also some increase in the customer acquisition cost of our DTC business of Nutrafol, but we continue very, very confident in the structural growth in the verticals of [indiscernible] in which we compete and in our ability to continue expanding our leadership there. So optimistic about the emerging markets, really optimistic about emerging markets. I believe that the solid delivery in U.S. in the last 3 years give us confidence that we will continue with outperforming the market there.

Thanks, Warren. On the productivity savings, I think we've said it in the press release. Cumulatively, we have now delivered about EUR 670 million of savings. The program is ahead of our own plans and internal plans and schedule. Most of this benefit, you will actually see in our SG&A line [ under ] the lower heads line, while some part of it was in supply chain overheads. From a 2026 perspective, we expect to at least deliver the balance, EUR 130 million, that was a commitment we set about EUR 800 million, and we'll continue to go further on that. And more as a cultural shift that we have really made in the company is, we'll continue to keep our SG&A costs and other overhead costs at run rates which are lower than the turnover and therefore, in a sense that productivity, therefore, becomes an ongoing habit.

Our next question comes from Guillaume at UBS.

A couple of questions for me, please. The first one is on the pricing outlook for 2026. Fernando, can you maybe shed some light on how you expect price growth to play out this year, particularly given the sequentially, I think, lower inflationary pressures you're expecting for '26. And also, it seems a pickup in promo activities in many of your categories and regions. So it would be interesting, did you hear if you anticipate some or maybe contrasted pricing developments by region or product category this year? And then the second question, probably for Srini. Could you maybe walk us through the key building blocks that support your confidence in achieving this modest margin improvement in '26? And in terms of phasing, anything you would flag at this stage, be it for margin or for underlying sales growth?

Thank you, Guillaume. Well, I think that the category and geographical footprint of Unilever offer in the long run around 3% pricing. That's the kind of normal pricing we have seen in the last 10 years. This year, we probably see that probably a bit lower than that, around 2%. We have seen some increased promotional spending, particularly in promotional intensity, particularly in Foods, but it's not dramatic. We have not seen really an increase in promotional intensity in emerging markets. So overall, I would expect pricing to be around the 2% level. Commodity inflation, Srini can give a bit of background on that.

So you're absolutely right. I think Fernando summarized the pricing outlook quite well. In 2026, the commodity inflation is not going to be broad-based. It's actually concentrated in a few set of the materials, most notably really being palm, canola oil and surfactants, where we continue to see year-on-year pressure coming through. The second angle, which is important -- and the first element of that really comes from a Home Care and Personal Care perspective, that's where we'll start to see elevated inflation in comparison to the other categories. The second aspect, which is important and sometimes overlooked, is that half our inflation classically comes from imported inflation or currency devaluation in the emerging markets. And therefore, that becomes an important element. It's also equally important to highlight that in some other commodities, notably in some of the food side of it or it's a crude related, including packaging, we are actually seeing deflation. So it's important in the first element to understand the difference between the different sets of the commodities that we have. Notwithstanding, we'll all recognize that there is also wage inflation, which is happening in the market. And that's also an important element, which we'll have to cover through a combination of productivity and through pricing. Coming back to, I think, the point really on the building blocks on gross margin. It's actually been quite an incredible story. If you really see, we have now consecutively increased our gross margins for the last 3 years, and the increases have actually been sizable, over 330 basis points. What we now start at 46.9% is structurally in a sustainably high gross margin business. And the levers in a manner are consistent with what we have been talking about. Mix plays a very important role for us through a combination of portfolio and geography will continue to drive that harder. Our savings program, notably in procurement, has actually demonstrated very differentiated capabilities now. On a consistent basis, we are actually beating across more commodities and markets we are beating the market, and that's actually flowing into the bottom line. We have also significantly enhanced some of our commodity risk management practices, which is enabling us to use more of the tools and the instruments to really hedge and actually mitigate the risk for us. We've also talked about capital investment. More than 50% of our capital has been now consistently, for the past 18, 24 months, being put towards savings, and that's something that we will continue. A combination of these elements, we are quite confident that our gross margin expansion in 2026 is likely to be higher than 2025, and that becomes actually a super important lever for us to actually continue to invest behind our brands. '25, we actually reached 16%. We'll continue to increase the spend, both on our Power Brands and also on our Beauty and Personal Care businesses. And completing the picture, I did talk about overheads. Culturally and philosophically, we will keep overheads increases lower than sales. That means there is inherent productivity built into our plans. A combination of all of this actually then starts to give us a confidence to have a higher gross margin, which we'll reinvest, and therefore deliver what we call is really a modest margin expansion. The last point in terms of your question on the phasing, while from a margin perspective we don't expect material differences between half 1 and half 2, it's important to highlight that we'll have slightly additional or higher headwinds of currency in half 1. That's really reflecting what has happened in base [ period ] of 2025. But from a full year perspective, we should be in the right ballpark.

Our next question comes from Jeremy at HSBC.

First one is on Europe, perhaps you could just go into a little bit more detail on that, sort of flattish at the end of the year. Was that reflecting kind of entirely slower markets? Or did your relative performance slip a bit? And then what would the outlook for the region be in 2026? And then the second part was, I guess, the Power Brands versus everything else. I guess that was an unusually big difference from what I could remember in Q4. Perhaps you could talk about sort of the non-Power Brand stuff because logically, that was quite a lot weaker. Just kind of how you -- how you kind of intend to manage that sort of 25% of the business to make sure that it doesn't become too big a drag on your turnover or whether you're happy with this sort of more dramatic Power Brand versus everything else growth that you saw in the quarter?

Thank you, Jeremy. Well, in Europe, our performance, yes, there was some slowdown in Europe in the last quarter. We have seen markets getting a bit more flattish in Europe. We continue outperforming the market, particularly in Home Care and Personal Care. They continue performing really well. Our Home Care business is gaining share broad-based across Laundry and Household Care. And our Deodorants business really performing also very, very strong. We have a strong innovation pipeline coming into 2026 in these categories. We continue thinking that we will remain strong when it comes to our competitiveness. We are in a round of negotiation with retailers at this stage. Everything is progressing well. So we don't expect any kind of big impact coming from that. Probably the biggest issue in Europe has been in Foods, that has been gradually soft, particularly in Netherlands, Germany. We have very, very good performance in Italy and France, overall. And U.K. has been solid for us. Poland has been a weak spot also. 40% of our European business is Foods, so that has an impact. But overall, we are confident that the kind of improved performance that we have had in Europe in the last couple of years, we can sustain that in average. When it comes to Power Brands and non-Power Brands, Power Brands are now 78% of our revenue. You already remember that we used to call out around 75% 18 months ago. They are growing strongly. In the quarter 4, we grew close to 6% [ UAG ] in Power Brands with 3.5% UAG. This is where we are concentrating all our incremental investment, particularly in the Power Brands of Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care. When you look at the non-Power Brands, 22% of our revenue, for the year, we delivered a volume growth negative of 1%. It has accelerated to minus 3% in the quarter 4. There are some discontinuation that we have done in that quarter. And also, there is some geographical elements that have play a role there. But we are not -- we continue thinking that the strategy of focusing behind our most strongest assets is the right one. If you look at our Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care combined, our performance has been, I believe, 4.5% growth for the year and 4.9% in quarter 4. And if you look at Power Brands in that territory, it's close to 6%. So that's what we will continue to put in the focus, and we will manage the rest of the portfolio accordingly. I would like to highlight also that the One Unilever markets, that our smaller markets have an excellent performance in 2025. This is an organization that we have put in place in 2025, with 35% reduction in headcount. It delivered 5.2% growth, and we have delivered an expansion of margin of more than 250 basis points. So smaller markets for us are a key engine for growth, but we are managing them in a simpler way, in a sharper way, with clear focus in the portfolio. They are focusing the portfolio there, and we are very confident about those geographies also.

Our next question is coming from Celine at JPM. Celine, we're trying your line again. Celine, can you hear us?

Yes. Can you hear me?

We can.

Excellent. So I hope I'm not asking something that's already been asked, but my first question would be on the sequencing of growth for the year. So you're looking to grow around 4%. I understand maybe pricing, 2%; and volume, above 2%. But then you've been flagging probably some weakness in the U.S. in the first quarter, and I presume a normalization in Asia or at least in Indonesia. So can you talk about how we should expect these to evolve throughout the year? And my second question is coming back on the Wellbeing and Beauty category. If you can talk about, on the Wellbeing side, what you're doing in the U.S. to reconnect with growth? And as well, what is your expectation about internationalization on that business? And what can we expect as that business, I would say, more normalized growth rate to be, if I could use that word. And I think on that division too, if you can talk about Hair Care and what we should expect for '26.

Cool. Thank you, Celine. We are guiding our top line growth at the lower end of our midterm guidance from 4% to 6%. If we are doing that, of course, there can be some quarters that can be below and some quarters that can be above that 4%, okay? So we will not guide on a quarterly basis. We have a good start in January, but there is a lot to do in the next few weeks to close quarter 1. But overall, we are confident that we will be delivering that 2-plus percent volume growth for the year and around 4% -- at least 4% for the top line growth. Going into Beauty & Wellbeing, what is the performance? As I mentioned before, if you look at Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, that combined business, because there are some brands that travel across the categories. We delivered an aggregated growth of 4.9% in the quarter 4 and 4.5% in the full year. And within Beauty and Personal Care, we had another great year of our largest brand, Dove, it grew 9%, with 7% volume growth on top of our 7% volume growth in the previous year, I would like to highlight that. In the case of Beauty & Wellbeing, we saw a solid performance in Skincare, great performance in Dove and Vaseline. Vaseline has delivered, for the second year in a row, double-digit volume growth. In Hair Care, we have been accelerating performance throughout the year. Dove Hair relaunch is a great success. We are seeing growth in markets like U.S, above 20%. This mix is traveling globally, and the rollout is expected to be completed in all key markets by mid-'26. And we expect better performance from Sunsilk and Clear that in 2025 were affected by the issues in Brazil and China. In Prestige Beauty, we accelerated also. The second half in 2025 was much better than the first half. We have great performances in brands like Hourglass and K18, our last acquisition. And in the retail channel for Dermalogica, we need to improve performance in Paula's Choice. There is a full relaunch of the brand ready for March this year, and we have to improve performance in the professional channel of Dermalogica that takes 30% of the brand. In Wellbeing, another great year. If you look at each of our 3 biggest brands: Liquid I.V., 16% growth; Nutrafol, 23% growth; OLLY, 9% growth. All these brands are U.S.-centric. We saw some softening in quarter 4, some of that fundamentally linked to market growth. The volume growth we delivered in the quarter was about 5%. We expect a relatively soft quarter 1 due to strong comparators, but we -- as I mentioned before, we are very confident on the structural growth potential of the Wellbeing verticals in which we compete and in our ability to continue expanding the leadership positions our brands enjoy there. I highlighted before, there are a couple of issues that we have to sort out. There was a decrease of share of assortment for Liquid I.V. in an important customer of the group channel. And there is some increase in the customer acquisition cost in Nutrafol, but we have great teams working on that, and we will find the solution quickly.

Our next question comes from Jeff at BNP.

Two questions, if I may. The first one is with respect to innovation, you've made quite a few comments about it. But could you just tell us what are the sort of big new renovations that you've got coming to market this year that we should be expecting to hear quite a lot about as the year progresses? And the second one, really just a housekeeping issue, but are you able to quantify the magnitude of the [ TSA ] receipts that you'll be getting from Magnum?

Thank you, Jeff. Well, first of all, I would like to highlight that our first -- our first [ pennies ] go to continue investing behind the innovations that have been very successful in the last few quarters. The Dove Hair relaunch, Persil Wonder Wash, Vaseline Gluta-Hya and Vaseline Pro Derma, the flavored range of Hellmann's that is really driving significant growth, all these platforms are above the EUR 100 million, EUR 200 million. So this is really going very, very fast, and we continue investing behind them. There is new innovation hitting the market in multiple categories. I would like probably to mention the UV repair range of Dove hitting the market in January in countries like China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, South Asia, Philippines. The derma scalp range of Dove Hair with focus in developed markets. I would call out particularly Vaseline lips. That's a 100 million franchise already. We are gaining share in every single market around the globe. We see lips as an entry for younger users into Vaseline, and we are very excited with the kind of Gluta-Hya range in lip care that we are bringing into the market. The rollout of the seal press range of TRESemmé that has been a big success in India. We are rolling out that across Asia. Nexxus, a big relaunch in U.S. and significant innovation in China and Indonesia. In China, Nexxus is really one highlight of our performance. In Personal Care, many things coming into the market, but I would like to highlight also the importance of the activation around the FIFA World Cup. This should be a real support for our performance, particularly in quarter 2, quarter 3. In Foods, continuity to the development of Hellmann's flavored mayo, but we are entering with protein caps in North with the launch in U.S. and scaling into European markets during the year. These are just some of the things that we are doing. So our innovation machine, I believe, has improved a lot in the last 2 to 3 years. Now our focus is ensuring that our execution capabilities are in line with the improvements that we have done in product development and innovation. But a good plan for the year. And as I mentioned before, our absolute priority is investing heavily behind the big winners that we have in the portfolio now.

On the TSA, Jeff, we are not actually quantifying externally the cost -- the total cost of the TSA. Having said that, there are 3 important elements. It's a cost plus and therefore, there's a very small markup that we charge on these services that's got to do with IT and it's got to do with the other commercial services, mostly in the functions. Point number two is that most of these TSAs will actually -- there are separate contracts, individual components. Between '26 and 2027, we expect most of them to really be taper off as the Magnum Ice Cream Company starts to take on these activities. Third element is that we have clear plans, which are ensuring that we manage these contracts well. And more importantly, there are no [ stranded ] costs left at a Unilever level. So all in all, very clear plans to handle this for the benefit of both companies.

Our next question comes from Olivier at Goldman Sachs.

Fernando, Srini, and Jemma, could you please provide an update on the strategy for Prestige Beauty first? Some brands are doing great like K18 and Hourglass; other, less so. Do you need more brands to -- for the portfolio to reach a bigger scale? And what does the M&A landscape look like at the moment? And then secondly, going back to Food. You had an amazing margin improvement. I think you reached 22.6% margins there. That's well above historical trends. What's the driver behind this improvement, how sustainable it is? And perhaps is Food Solutions better margins than the rest?

Good. I will cover Prestige, and Srini will cover the Food margin question. In Prestige, you are right. We have had a great performance in brands like our Hourglass, [ touch ], K18, not so well in Dermalogica, Paula's Choice. Even in Dermalogica in the retail is showing a lot of strength, but the brand is exposed to a professional channel that is declining, and we need to address some issues there. The Prestige market is changing dramatically. I feel you see less importance of travel retail. You see department store practically disappearing. You see a huge growth of the e-commerce channel. And I believe this gives us a lot of opportunities. And we consider our presence in Prestige a natural continuity of our presence in Skin Care and Hair Care. So that's how we see that. We are working in a much more integrated way, particularly in areas like Asia, in which channels of specialist beauty are not so developed and e-commerce is really taking the lead in developing the prestige market. We are always scanning the market for opportunities. Our acquisition criteria are very, very, very clear. We look at brands that are digitally-native with the big exposure to e-commerce, in [ categories ] in which we can add value and there are a set of criteria that we follow with a lot of rigor. But we will not rush into acquisitions if the right asset doesn't emerge. And at this stage, we have not acquired in Prestige recently because we have not seen any asset that really fill any gap in the portfolio that we can have. But super, super committed to Skin Care, Hair Care. To a brand like Hourglass, that is a real jewel in the [indiscernible] cosmetic super premium space. We see Prestige as natural continuity of our presence in our Skin Care and Hair Care business.

On the Foods margins, we are actually quite pleased with the way the whole business has been managed and being operated. There is a very sharp strategic choices that we've made in terms of where to play, how to win. And what's also notable is actually the execution discipline which has come into this business, which is actually leading to our market outperformance across various markets and various segments. A lot of this really is read through gross margin. Some of the levers, which I explained earlier are also applicable to the Foods business, and therefore, I will not repeat them. Having said that, Foods business has also benefited significantly from some of the portfolio rationalization. We have, over the past 18, 24, 36 months, taken out or delisted the parts of the portfolio which were not value accretive. So I think that has really helped us. Second is we also have some very good whole pack price architecture, especially when it comes to Hellmann's and some of the innovations. Secondly, when it comes to the UFS business where we manage it extremely well with profitable accounts has also been a big driver for us. It's also important that the whole overhead element of savings, which we have executed in the company, are also benefiting from a food perspective. Having said that, we continue to invest well. I think that's the most important element because we see Foods as a growth business for us. So we are absolutely determined to invest to really grow the business. At an aggregate level, I think we are quite happy with the margins. The focus from here on for us is going to be more drive growth, volume-led growth, and not necessarily a big margin expansion.

Our next question comes from Sarah at Morgan Stanley.

I have 2 questions, please. One was the impact of discontinuations generally across the group. Can you quantify that in terms of volume? And then the second one was on Dr. Squatch, have you -- obviously, that was growing super fast before you acquired it. Can you give us any idea how much that's grown during fiscal '26 -- sorry, fiscal '25?

Yes. I don't know if we will provide any discontinuation figure, Srini. But in Dr. Squatch, the -- of course, this is an important acquisition for us. It will only count in our underlying sales growth from September next year, but the performance has been good since acquisition, continued growing double digit, a strong brand, very distinct proposition in the male grooming space. Really making significant inroads particularly in the Deo category after establishing a very, very strong position in skin cleansing. So we are very pleased with having Dr. Squatch in our portfolio. We expect that to be a significant contributor to growth during 2026. But as I mentioned before, it will only count in our underlying sales growth from September onwards. But of course, pleased with the performance until now, absolutely in line with the business case that we put at acquisition time.

Just a short one. See, anything that we actually do from an M&A or a disposal perspective, you get a full list of those disposals and the impact. Discontinuations and new launches of SKUs happen in the normal course of our business. Having said that, some of these discontinuations actually sit in the non-Power Brands section. And Fernando actually gave you a bit of a flavor in terms of whether it is the tail list of SKUs in Beauty & Wellbeing or some of the elements in Foods. I think that's the right place to keep looking for it, and it gives you a bit of a sense in terms of what's happening there.

Our next question comes from David at Jefferies.

Just one for me, I think, in terms of the topic. Just Latin America, I know you talked about a little bit, but it feels like that's recovered volume wise a little bit quicker than maybe you were kind of indicating at the third quarter. So just whether that is the case, what was done better that meant that, that's happened? I guess, to some extent, was the innovations, a relaunch that took place? And did that -- effectively, did that flatter the quarterly volumes in the fourth, maybe leading on to then saying, well, volume growth you think be flat to positive in the first quarter or the first half?

Yes. Yes, we don't see in Latin America, any performance that is fundamentally different to what we what we said to you one quarter ago. The macro environment remains tough, both in Brazil and Mexico. Markets, as I mentioned, has been flattish. But we have intervened in some areas in which, as I mentioned before, we have scored some own goals, particularly in Home Care pricing and in Deos format focus. Our Food business continue performing very, very well, particularly Hellmann's having a blast in Brazil, gaining share penetration, brand equity. And Beauty & Wellbeing has had a solid performance. In the case of Home Care, as I mentioned, we are pleased with the reaction to our pricing correction, is showing really impacting our volumes, particularly in Brazil. And in Deos, I believe there is much more to come. Some of the actions that we have taken are being implemented now, particularly the reset of planogram in thousands of stores across the region. We are really investing heavily behind aerosol format that as I mentioned before, has a much higher revenue per user and profit per use than some of the contract applicators, and we have a strong support from the retailers in that space. So we are confident for 2026 that Latin America will have a much better contribution to our performance. I have been associated with Latin America for many years. I have never seen 2 bad years in a row in Latin America. So we are very confident that we will deliver in that region and the team is super, super committed in the region to improve performance there.

Our next question comes from Tom at Deutsche Bank.

Yes. I wondered if you could just say a few words on the channel shift that is occurring in North America and how that's impacting you? We're obviously seeing very high growth on Amazon, and it appears that your shares are a bit lower on Amazon than they would be off. So what is the outlook for your share on that channel? And what's the effect of that channel growth? And particularly, I guess, as well is just the growth of smaller peers and what that then does to the cadence of your innovation because you're stating a lot of innovation globally, but it's not clear whether that is speeding up in any one particular market, if you say, particularly in North America. So are you combating the growth of smaller peers by fewer, bigger innovations or more iterative, please?

Thank you, Tom. Well, we continue having a strong performance in digital commerce. And I would say there are 3 types of digital commerce in which we have delivered strong performances. One is classic marketplace in North America, big retailers, they are like Amazon and walmart.com. I have mentioned the performance last quarter, I will not repeat numbers today, but we are growing double digit with these people strongly in North America. Social commerce in places like Southeast Asia and China and quick commerce in India. So in all of them, we are growing double digit. We are growing our [indiscernible] through a special assortment of our core brands. And of course, through the portfolio of new brands that we have been acquiring, particularly in the case of North America, our focus in acquisitions has been in digitally-native brands with a strong exposure to e-commerce, and that has been working for us properly. We have not seen a significant slowdown in the North American market in the e-commerce side. Probably what you have seen, particularly in the month of October, that was very weak in the North American market, it was more related with physical stores with the off-line channel. And there is always, of course, e-commerce opens an entry point to many small brands, but very few brands has been able to scale big. I continue thinking that brands like that or like Vaseline have significant competitive advantage also in online. And when I said before that, that is growing 7% volume globally. When you look at that growth in e-commerce, it's practically 2x that. So good performance in digital commerce. Of course, this is accelerating, particularly in some markets in Asia, that is, I would say, a leapfrog of modern physical retail into e-commerce, but we are very well prepared to take advantage of that.

Our final question comes from Ed Lewis, Rothschild.

Yes. A couple of ones for me. I guess a lot of change, a lot of heavy lifting, as you said, Fernando, the last [ 2 ] years. So we think about 2026, is this really the first year that we should start to see the benefits of the revamped approach to innovation that you introduced a couple of years ago? And then for Srini, just on the CapEx plans, over 3% of turnover, how much of CapEx will be spent on what you call margin-enhancing activities? I think you were close to around 60% last year.

Thank you, Ed. Yes, a lot of heavy lifting has been done, I would say, particularly in terms of organization. And if you think that last year, we divisionalize our sales force, we separate Ice Cream, we made significant steps in our productivity program. All these are potential, very disruptive initiatives. And the fact that we delivered a solid year in the context of all these initiatives, we consider that something important for us. Our product development, our innovation capabilities definitely are in a very different place to where they were 3 years ago. I have not said 3 years ago that I would have been proud when I stand up in front of the up Dove shelf or the Vaseline shelf. I am now. And that's basically a sentiment that I may start an experience with many, many of our brands. Of course, there are some elements in execution that have to improve. We have had issues of channel price conflict in some markets, some issues in country like Brazil that should have not happened. We have launched a program of what we call perfect store in order to ensure that pricing assortment visibility are really properly managed and in a homogeneous way across Unilever. I'm really focusing to that now. But as you said, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done, and we see 2026 as a very important year to really bear some of the fruits of this effort that -- this investment that we have put in the business, both in terms of money and time and focus during all these years. Srini?

So on the CapEx for the past 2 years, we have actually been spending around the 3% level. And you're right that we are -- or even from a 2026 point of view, we will look to spend anywhere about 55% to 60% going towards what we call as productivity or savings. From a capacity perspective, I think we are well covered, and therefore, that gives us the ammunition to continue to drive the savings harder. Having said that, we are actually open to increasing the levels of CapEx to support the further growth in the productivity agenda, but with 2 caveats. One is obviously each of the case -- business cases have to justify themselves. And we have actually taken up the thresholds in terms of both the IRRs as well as the payback periods, and these are nonnegotiable. So each of the projects have to justify and they justify. We will invest. That will not be a constraint. The second element is we are committed to maintaining 100% cash conversion. So therefore, we will generate this cash for us to be able to fund it. But our focus on leveraging productivity CapEx remains on track from 2026 perspective.

Cool. I believe there are no more questions. So thank you, everyone, for joining the call. And let me close saying that I hope it's clear that first, we have delivered a very solid 2025 despite subdued markets and a very negative currency environment for Unilever. Second, that we enter 2026 as a simpler, more focused business with stronger brands and competitive level of investment. We're investing now 16% of our revenue in our brands, 3 years ago, we were at 13%. Third, that our geographical footprint is an asset, and we are very confident in a step-up in emerging markets in 2026. And fourth, that our key metrics don't change: volume growth, positive mix and gross margin expansion to deliver earnings growth in hard currency. That's where the whole company is focused on. Thank you very much.

Hello, and welcome to Unilever's Third Quarter Trading Statement for 2025. Thank you for being with us today. I am joined here by Srini Phatak. Srini's appointment as Chief Financial Officer was confirmed by the Board last month, following an extensive search process. Srini's vast experience and expertise are great assets for Unilever, and I am really delighted we will keep building on the strong partnership that we have formed. In a moment, Srini will take you through the detail of the third quarter results. First of all, let me highlight the key elements of our performance as I see it. We have delivered a good quarter with 4% underlying sales growth and acceleration of volume growth to 1.7% for Unilever, excluding Ice Cream, despite subdued markets. Growth was broad-based across all business groups, with each of them delivering underlying sales growth above 3%. This performance keeps Unilever on track to meet our full year outlook and is evidence of our powerful innovation, improved execution and significant shift into premium segments and fast-growing channels. It is also fully in line with the priorities we have set for the business. For example, our major growth engines, Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care delivered particularly strong performances. Our power brands continued to outperform, delivering 4.4% growth in the quarter with volumes up 1.7% for total group and 2.2% excluding. We also saw a continuation of sustained strength in developed markets, particularly North America. Volume-led growth in that region was 5.5%, and it was driven by Personal Care and improved performance in Prestige Beauty, and once again, exceptional delivery in Wellbeing. Europe grew underlying sales by a competitive 1.1% despite a strong comparator. Structurally, our business in Europe continued to improve and strengthen. Our emerging market business step up with 4.1% USG led by a return to growth in Indonesia and China. Overall, emerging markets grew well despite the short-term impact of the goods and service tax reforms in India and some challenges in Latin America. We have delivered these results while preparing our Ice Cream business for the demerger, which we expect to be completed before the end of the year. The time line is being revised as a result of the U.S. government shutdown impacting the work of the SEC. Shin will say more about the final stages towards the merger in a moment. In summary, a positive set of results this quarter that reaffirm our confidence in the steps we have taken to make Unilever a true marketing and sales machine. They will continue to guide and inform our actions over the quarters ahead. With that, I will hand over to Srini to take you through the third quarter results in detail. And after that, I will come back to say something about the remainder of the year and beyond and also provide a brief wrap-up. We will then take questions. First of all, over to Srini.

Thank you, Fernando. Unilever's underlying sales growth in third quarter was 3.9% with broad-based progress across the business groups. Underlying price growth was 2.4% and volume contributed 1.5%. This resulted in a two-year compounded annual volume growth rate of 2.6%. We expect the Ice Cream demerger to be completed in 2025. In this context, excluding Ice Creams, our underlying sales grew 4%. Volume in the quarter was 1.7% compared to 1.1% in the previous quarter. All the four business groups delivered positive volume growth with a two-year compounded annual volume growth rate of 2.4%. Our Power Brands, which represent over 75% of our turnover, grew 4.4% in the third quarter, including 1.7% from volume. Power Brands, excluding Ice Cream, delivered 2.2% volume growth, in line with our medium-term volume ambition. Strong performances included double-digit growth from Vaseline, Liquid I.V., Nutrafol, Cif and Domestos and high single-digit growth from Comfort, OLLY and Cornetto. Dove, our biggest brand, keeps outperforming the market with a 6% USG in the quarter and 8% year-to-date. Before turning to the business groups, let me first provide some color on our performance across different geographies. Developed markets continue to perform strongly. North America grew underlying sales by 5.5% with 5.4% from volume, reflecting the continued benefits of our multiyear portfolio transformation. Growth was driven by strong performances in our Personal Care and Wellbeing brands, underpinned by premium innovations. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter of robust volume-led growth in North America, supported by share gains across key categories and sustained brand investment. Europe grew underlying sales by 1.1% with a 0.6% decline in volume and 1.7% growth from price. Our performance was broad-based and robust given high comparators of over 6% growth. We gained share across major markets, power brands and multiyear premium innovations, including the rollout of Wonder Wash and Cif Infinite Clean continued to perform well. Asia Pacific Africa delivered 6.8% underlying sales growth with 3.5% from volume and 3.1% from price. This is a clear acceleration versus the first half, reflecting an improved performance in key markets and a stronger execution across categories. Indonesia returned to growth as we saw the benefits of the extensive business reset we have undertaken. Strengthened brand plans, sharper channel execution and renewed customer partnerships are driving improving trends. Sequential improvements in run rate position Indonesia for sustained progress into 2026. In China, while the market environment remains subdued, we delivered low single-digit growth, supported by innovations within our key brands and interventions in pricing. The macro environment in India continues to be favorable. Earlier in the year, personal income tax and interest rates were lowered. In September, the government reduced GST or sales taxes to 5% on around 40% of our portfolio, making the affected products roughly 10% cheaper. While these changes are expected to improve consumption through higher disposable income and improved sentiment, quarter 3 sales were temporarily impacted as trade reduced inventories and consumers delayed purchases in anticipation of lower prices. Trading conditions are expected to normalize from November onwards. Underlying performance was driven by premium portfolios in Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care. Turning to Latin America. Underlying sales declined by 2.5% in third quarter with a 7.3% decline in volume, partly offset by a 5.2% from price. Markets across Latin America are experiencing a broad-based softening, reflecting continued macroeconomic pressure on category growth and consumer demand. In Brazil, our focus remains on restoring competitiveness in laundry, where we are seeing early signs of progress. In deodorants, we continued to gain share in a declining market, impacted by a temporary shift in product formats. Our Foods business delivered double-digit growth in Hellmann's, supported by the continued success of its flavored mayonnaise range. In Argentina, the macroeconomic backdrop remains unstable amid ongoing political uncertainty. We expect to see improvement in the region during 2026. Beauty & Wellbeing underlying sales growth was 5.1%, driven by strong volume growth of 2.3% and 2.7% from price. Our volume momentum remains very solid with a two-year CAGR of 4%. Dove Hair, Vaseline, Hourglass, K18, Liquid I.V. and Nutrafol, all delivered double-digit volume-led growth, reflecting the strength of our premium innovations and disciplined execution. Hair Care was broadly flat. Growth in our premium portfolio was offset by declines in Clear and Sunsilk, which were impacted by soft market conditions in China and Brazil and by lower TRESemmé volumes in the U.S., where we have pricing and promotional corrections in place to support improvement. Core skin grew mid-single digit, led by Vaseline, which delivered double-digit growth in both sales and volume. Growth was supported by premium innovations such as the new Cloud soft light moisturizer in India. Prestige Beauty grew mid-single digit, led by volume as the category showed gradual recovery. Performance remained mixed with Hourglass and K18 continuing to grow double digit, while Paula's Choice and Dermalogica returned to low single-digit growth after declines in the first half. Wellbeing continued its exceptional run, delivering strong double-digit growth. Power Brands, Nutrafol and Liquid I.V. sustained their outstanding performance, supported by deep innovation funnel, increased brand investment and selective international expansion. Personal Care underlying sales growth was 4.1%, driven by 1% volume and 3.1% price. The two-year compounded annual volume growth rate of 2% reflects the continued resilience across our core categories, supported by strong growth in Asia Pacific, Africa and in North America, which was driven by Dove. Premium innovations in deodorants and skin cleansing continued to lead growth with the rollout of whole body deodorants and the expansion of premium body wash driving strong consumer engagement and share gains. Deodorants grew low single digit, led by Dove in North America. Growth was partly offset by weaker performance in Latin America, reflecting a decline in category volumes and a temporary shift in product formats. Skin cleansing grew low single digit with commodity-related pricing weighing on volumes. Dove continued to perform well, supported by its premium innovations and the launch of a limited edition seasonal body wash ranges. Lifebuoy grew low single digit. Oral Care delivered high single-digit growth led by our power brands, CloseUp and Pepsodent with strong momentum in Asia Pacific Africa. In September, we further strengthened our Personal Care portfolio with the completion of acquisition of Dr. Squatch, expanding our presence in the fast-growing premium male grooming segment in North America. Home Care underlying sales grew 3.1% in the third quarter with 2.5% from volume and 0.6% from price. Volume growth stepped up versus the previous quarter, driven by sustained performance in Europe and improving trends across several key markets in Asia Pacific, Africa. Fabric cleaning was flat overall. Europe grew mid-single digit as the rollout of Wonder Watch continued to drive volume growth and strengthen our competitiveness. Wonder Wash will reach 30 markets by the end of the year. This was partially offset by a decline in Brazil, where the market conditions remained soft and we implemented corrective pricing actions. Home & Hygiene grew mid-single digit with balanced contributions from both price and volume. Growth was led by Cif and Domestos, both delivering double-digit performances. Cif Infinite Clean, a multipurpose cleaner powered by probiotics has now been rolled out across major European markets and is delivering strong early results. Fabric enhancers grew high single digit. Comfort delivered strong volume-led growth, supported by the continuous success of its Crystal Fresh technology. Foods delivered growth ahead of the market with underlying sales of 3.4% with 1.3% from volume and 2.1% from price. Growth was broad-based across regions, led by strong brand execution. Condiments delivered mid-single-digit growth with positive volume and price. Hellmann's maintained its strong momentum with mid-single-digit growth led by volume. This was supported by competitive growth in developed markets and by a particularly strong double-digit growth in Brazil, where Hellmann's is growing from strength to strength. Cooking Aids grew low single digit with positive volume and price. Knorr and Unilever Food Solutions both delivered low single-digit growth amidst subdued market conditions. Ice Creams underlying sales grew 3.7% in the third quarter with flat volume and 3.7% from price. Volumes were flat against a mid-single-digit comparator last year with a two-year compounded annual volume growth rate of 3.4%. Growth continues to be competitive, reflecting strong innovation, ongoing operational improvements and disciplined execution across regions. Cornetto led with high single-digit growth, while Ben & Jerry's grew mid-single digits, supported by the launch of new Sundae flavors and a larger shareable pack format that is expanding the consumption occasions. Now let me take you through the latest update on the Ice Cream demerger. All the preparatory work for the demerger remains on track with the shareholder circular published on 2nd October and the approval of share consolidation received on 21st of October. Due to the U.S. government shutdown, the SEC is currently unable to declare the U.S. registration statement effective, resulting in revisions to the original time line. We remain committed to and are confident of implementing the demerger in 2025, and we will share further updates as soon as practicable once there is greater clarity on the timing. Let me also now explain how the demerger and the share consolidation will work in practice. As a part of the demerger, shareholders will receive one share in the Magnum Ice Cream Company for every five Unilever shares they hold. Following the demerger, we will carry out a consolidation of Unilever shares to maintain comparability between Unilever's share price and key per share metrics before and after the demerger. This is a standard technical adjustment in transactions of this nature, and the final ratio will be confirmed shortly after TMICC shares begin trading. Importantly, Unilever is expected to pay quarter 4 dividend in full, ensuring continuity for our shareholders through the completion of the Ice Cream demerger. Turnover for the third quarter was EUR 14.7 billion, down 3.5% year-on-year. Underlying sales growth of 3.9% was more than offset by a negative currency impact of 6.1%. We now expect an adverse currency impact on full year turnover of around 6% and a 30 basis points on the underlying operating margin. Portfolio changes also reduced reported turnover with an impact of negative 1% from net disposals. Acquisitions contributed 0.5%, led by strong double-digit growth from K18 and Wild and supported by the addition of Dr. Squatch following the completion of its acquisition in September. This was more than offset by a negative 1.6% impact from portfolio disposals, including The Vegetarian Butcher, which was completed in September. With that, over to you, Fernando.

Thank you, Srini. Let me conclude by saying something about how we see the remainder of the year. In short, our outlook is unchanged, and that applies both including and excluding Ice Cream. In either case, we expect underlying sales growth to be within our 3% to 5% multiyear range. Growth in the second half will be ahead of the first half. This despite some softness in certain markets, notably Latin America. Overall, we expect we will continue to outperform our markets with a strong competitive performance in developed markets and an improved performance in emerging markets. Volume growth in quarter 4 should be at least in line with quarter 3. On the bottom line, we continue to expect an improvement in underlying operating margin for the full year, with second half margins of at least 18.5% or at least 19.5%, excluding Ice Cream. Of course, we will continue to monitor external events closely in what remains an uncertain environment. Finally, on the back of a strong quarter, we are looking ahead to the rest of the year and into 2026 with confidence and resolve. Unilever is changing fast and the strategic priorities we have set out. The portfolio is stronger with more beauty, more wellbeing, more personal care. This quarter saw Beauty & Wellbeing up 5.1% and Personal Care up 4.1%. The shift to premium and digital commerce is accelerating, both organically and through M&A as per the recent acquisitions of Wild and Dr. Squatch. Our anchor markets are delivering superior growth. Our U.S. business has now posted five consecutive quarters of strong volume-led growth. The performance expectation we are placing on people within the company are higher with clear accountability and real differentiation in our incentive outcomes. And our commitment to make Unilever a marketing and sales machine permeates everything we are doing from the acceleration of desire at scale in elevating our brand portfolio to the significant investment we are making to step up execution and excellence in every part of the business. In short, we are crystal clear on what we need to do and where we want to invest. We will not be diverted from these priorities. As we look ahead, it is clear that some markets and categories will remain soft for a while, but we have put Unilever on a stronger footing and are increasingly confident in our ability to continue outperforming markets, whatever the conditions. With that, thank you for listening, and we are looking forward to taking your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Warren Ackerman at Barclays.

Warren here at Barclays. So I've got two and one housekeeping. The housekeeping one on the clarification on volume, at least Q3 level. Can you just confirm, Fernando, you're confirming also 2% volume growth into '26 as well. So just looking forward. And my two questions are, firstly, North America, really super growth, very impressive. Can you talk a bit about the growth of the wellbeing -- the Prestige and Wellbeing unit within North America, there's been some investor concerns that Liquid I.V. might be plateauing, and you've seen a recovery in the Prestige piece. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what's happening with Paula's Choice and Dermalogica and sort of the look forward in North America. And then the second one on Latin America. I mean, clearly, the macro is tough, but there seems to be some self-inflicted issues in Brazilian laundry powder, Brazilian deodorants. Can you explain a little bit your actions you're taking, what learnings you've made? I think you've been in the region yourself. Is there a risk that you've taken too much pricing in Latin America to hit hard currency FX? And what reassurance can you give us that we won't see that in other EMs? And as we look forward on LatAm, can you maybe give some clarity on the pathway forward and the growth you expect in LatAm in '26?

Thank you, Warren, and good morning, everyone. Well, let me start by North America, and I feel the performance that we are having there with five consecutive quarters now of volume growth of 4% and at a time in which markets are visibly tougher there, I believe it's a reflection of the profound transformation we have done in our portfolio, the setup of a U.S. for U.S. innovation model and a huge focus in strengthening relations with key retailers. I mentioned that in the last call, for the first time in many, many years, we have ranked #1 in Personal Care, #1 in Foods and #3 in Beauty in the most popular survey with the top 130 retailers in U.S., and that basically show our ability to make markets in that region. Regarding performance of Beauty & Wellbeing there, it was really strong. Wellbeing continue having an exceptional performance in the U.S., double-digit growth both in Liquid I.V. and Nutrafol. Both brands are approaching there the $1 revenue mark for the year. Prestige Beauty has improved after a relatively flattish first half. We delivered mid-single-digit growth. But we don't take that as a new trend, I would say. Very good growth in our glass, very good growth in K18 in the most premium part of Prestige and Paula's Choice and Dermalogica are back to growth, but low single digits. So these are our main Prestige beauty brands there. But also our core in skin care was solid with very, very good performance in Dove and Vaseline there. We have some issues in hair care in the U.S. We decided to release some brands that is having some impact in our growth in care in the U.S., the likes of AXE Hair and Love Beauty and Planet are in process of delisting. That was a conscious decision. We didn't believe that these brands were sustainable, and we decided to delist them. About Latin America. Well, indeed, it has been a very weak quarter for us in Latin America. It's a combination of markets under pressure due to a deteriorating macro broad-based price increases to deal with currency depreciation. And as I have already mentioned previously, we scored a couple of phone calls there. The three major Latin American economies are under pressure, different reasons. In Brazil, the level of household debt and the interest rates are extremely high, remittances in Mexico going down, Argentina contraction in consumption run against the local currency in the short term. And as a result of that, we have seen the markets really going down significantly. If you look in volumes in H1 '24, volume growth of 7%, H2 3%, flat in H1, negative in quarter 3. But there are definitely a couple of goals. In laundry, Brazil, we went too far in our pricing. Historically, our competitors in powders in Brazil tend to follow us in a period of 8 to 12 weeks. That was not the case. We have corrected that, and we are starting to see significant improvements in our sellout. And on top of that, the market is really shifting very quickly to liquids, and we are introducing in quarter 3. We have introduced in quarter 3, our very successful European wonder was mix. So we expect competitive in laundry to progressively improve. And the other big category we have in Brazil, particularly deodorants in that category, we have been gaining substantial market share in the territory of 200 basis points there. But we did boosting our contact applicator formats at the expense of aerosol and this has had some negative consequence in the overall market growth because the revenue per use of aerosol is significantly larger than the one of contact applicators. So the negative growth in aerosol format is crucial. The plans are in place, and there are clear learnings from these two issues that we have had, and we will be sure of not repeating that anywhere else. So that's basically to say about Latin America. We don't expect -- we expect that we will see improvement in Latin America during 2026. At this stage, I don't want to commit to more than that. Regarding the long-term ambition, we continue thinking that it's absolutely possible for us to deliver 2% market volume growth. In the long run, our combined categories and geographical footprint offers around 2% market volume growth, even if at this moment, it is more in the 1% territory. But we are outperforming markets very clearly in Europe and U.S. And in D&E, we see a significant progress, particularly in Asia.

Our next question comes from Guillaume at UBS.

Two questions for me, please. The first one is on pricing. I mean we're having a relatively benign commodity cost environment. You also flagged a relatively weak consumer environment in some key countries like Brazil, where you mentioned some pricing adjustments. So given this backdrop, do you expect price growth to remain at current levels or to actually come down over the coming quarters? So any color on your price growth outlook would be very helpful. And then my second question is on Europe. I mean, volume growth turned slightly negative in the quarter. Could you talk a little bit about the drivers behind this? Is it just down to this very elevated base of comparison? And so nothing to see here volume to return to positive territory from next quarter? Or on an underlying basis, are you maybe seeing some changes in category growth or in the consumer behavior?

Thank you, Guillaume, and Srini will help me with the pricing question. In Europe, we have positive volume when you exclude Ice Cream in the quarter. So against a very tough comparator. We delivered 7% volume growth in Europe in the same quarter last year. So the comparator was very, very tough. I believe you read the same information that we read and you see that we are gaining significant share in Europe, particularly in Home Care and Personal Care that are two of our most sizable business in Europe. So our innovation in the premium segment is really working very, very well there. We are very confident about our prospects in Europe, but the comparator was very, very tough. Our share gain is solid. It is broad-based. In the top five markets in Europe, we are gaining share. We are very pleased overall with the performance that we have structurally in Europe. In the case of pricing, and Srini will help me with that, it's true commodity cost is relatively benign with the exception of a few family of materials, palm oil in particularly is increasing significantly. This has significant implications in HPC liquids, home care, personal care and beauty liquids and also in skin cleansing bars. Aluminum is going up. But I feel it's important also for you to remember that wage inflation is significant. You see wage inflation in Europe and in U.S. in the territory of 4%, and we need to cover for that also. Srini?

So, two additional elements to that, Guillaume. Clearly, the inflationary pressures, as Fernando said in skin cleansing are higher. However, when you look at something like a home care, it's quite benign with crude sitting at around the $60 mark. Having said that, when we really look at the total net material inflation, which is a composition of the materials and ForEx devaluation. That's another important element to see that in all the emerging markets, the currencies have devalued, and therefore, there is an imported inflation. Give or take, we see that net material cost should be about EUR 0.5 billion for this year, and we expect similar levels for next year given the information that we have now. This will really warrant a sensible pricing. This is lower than what we have seen the historical average of EUR 200 million to EUR 300 but it's a little better than that, but obviously much lower than what we experienced through the COVID period. So, in essence, if you really think about those levels of inflation, there is price in the market and there is price clearly in some categories. The only last color is that when it comes to beauty, given the value chain, I think the bigger impact for us will really come from price and mix together because with premium innovations and what we are bringing to the market, we have the propensity and the ability to price up, and we will do that in a sensible manner.

Our next question comes from Olivier at Goldman Sachs.

Just two questions, please. First on within Hair Care and particularly in the U.S., TRESemmé has been struggling for a couple of quarters. Is that still expected to continue into Q4? Or has it improved already by the end of Q3? And how much of an impact it had on price/mix in the U.S.? And then just lastly on Liquid I.V., could you perhaps give us a bit of an update on the global rollout of the brand in how many countries you're expecting to launch it, not necessarily obviously in Q4, but also into 2026? And which geographies will be the priority?

Thank you, Olivier. Regarding Hair Care in the U.S., this year, we entered with two significant relaunches. One was the Dove hair one and the other one was TRESemmé, both imply significant repositioning of growth brands. In the case of Dove hair has been an incredible success, growing double digit in the U.S., significant reposition in terms of pricing, much closer to the average of the market. In the case of TRESemmé, that didn't work in the same way. But we have corrected that. And in the quarter 3, TRESemmé is back to growth with particular good performance in styling. So we are confident in the trend that we are seeing in TRESemmé and in hair care in the U.S. The main issue in U.S., I would say, when you look at hair care performance has been the delisting of some of the brands, but this has been a conscious decision. In the case of Liquid I.V., excellent performance in the U.S., as I mentioned before, the brand is really approaching the EUR 1 billion mark with double-digit growth in another quarter. The brand has been rolled now to eight markets, particularly in Western Europe, Australia. We are starting to introduce the brand in Urban India. The initial results are very, very good. Of course, Canada was launched last year also.

Our next question comes from David Hayes at Jefferies.

So, two from us as well. So, firstly, just on kind of broader questions, I guess. So just in terms of the margin levels, India, Indonesia, you're seeing signs of improvement, but you've obviously taken quite a dramatic step in terms of profitability as you invest in those areas. So, the question is, is that something you need to do more in other markets, I guess going back to the hard currency question that we had earlier, 2019 margins, which is kind of where you're getting back to, you've had two previous CEOs say that was too high. Why is that the right level now? And is something -- does something needs to be done in other markets to try and restimulate the volume growth as you've seen in those two areas? And the second one, just to pick up on what you talked about a few weeks ago in Boston. The eight power brands focused for the One Unilever markets, you talked about not really supporting the other brands. Just to get a bit more detail on that, is that a case of no A&P spend at all beyond those eight brands in those markets? Can you quantify what percentage of sales that leaves not being supported? And can you talk about what impact you think that might have on those brands in terms of a headwind to growth for a period of time?

Thank you, David. I'll take Power Brands and then Srini will talk about regarding margin. Power Brands in One Unilever market represent around 80% of the revenue. We want to take that into 90%, 95%. This doesn't mean that we will not use other levers of support of our local brands in these markets or that we will let these brands to die. But definitely, we don't want complexity in our strategic move that we are doing. Our performance in One Unilever market has been very strong, consistently strong during this year. We have delivered another quarter of 4.9% with good volumes, excellent performance in most of the geographies. And definitely, we are really concentrating our efforts in rolling out our strongest brands, usually three in beauty, two in Personal Care, one in Home Care and one in Foods in most of these markets, and this is a conscious decision that we are doing. Of course, when there are local jewels, we will protect them. We will support them. We will use our drivers of demand in all these cases. Margin?

So, David, I think it's important to appreciate what is different in the way we are thinking about our profit and profitability. The six or seven levers that we are today exercising are significantly different. We've talked about the importance of volume growth that the 2% volume growth of the anchor actually then starts to provide a leverage for us across the value chain, and that starts to become an important contributor. Given the work that we have done, whether it's in terms of the portfolio mix, the geography mix, the channel mix or the format mix, mix is actually becoming a component, which gives about 25 to 30 basis points on a regular basis for us. In the past, we have spoken to you about how we have reshaped the whole supply chain space, how we are actually buying, whether it's technology, whether it's game theory. Project Lighthouse is consistently enabling us beat the market inflation by about 1%. When we look at the controlled cost element to it, again, serious amount of work which is happening in terms of reshaping the network of manufacturing and logistics, and we can go on. You've also seen how we have reshaped our overall overheads trajectory where we have actually completed, we are well ahead on our productivity program. And actually, now we are driving productivity as a habit and a culture in the organization where our costs will be lower than our revenue growth on a consistent multiyear basis. And we are deploying capital, more than 55% to 60% of our capital today has gone towards savings initiatives, and we are actually looking at a lot more backward integration projects. So when we add up all of these elements and also given the relative strength of our brands, this is what is enabling us to drive our margins differently. Equally, important to highlight that the margin profile, now we will be talking about businesses, excluding Ice Creams, and Ice Creams at an aggregate was a margin dilutive for us. So when we really look at Beauty, Personal Care and Foods, very strong and healthy margins. Given the footprint of Home Care and the positioning, a little lower, but all of them are actually contributing in a sensible way. We're also really very focused on hard currency earnings because that's again a multiyear clear objective. And there, when you look at it, we are also pulling all levers, which includes below-the-line items such as taxation, pension, interest costs. All elements of the value chain today are in play. And I think what gives us this when we have a consistent business, which is delivering day in and day out, margin expansion becomes very integral to the way we really think about growth and we think about profit. So a lot more confidence today is Unilever to continue to build our margins, drive hard currency earnings and get hard currency earnings, hopefully, on a multiyear basis, which are ahead of our sales ambition.

Next question comes from Sarah Simon at Morgan Stanley.

Just a question on the U.S. So we're starting to hear some sort of negative commentary from some of the consumer-oriented companies about the effect of the government shutdown. Just wondering if you are seeing any of that in your businesses?

Thank you, Sarah. We have not seen any significant impact of the government shutdown at this stage in the consumer sentiment. Of course, we follow similar service you follow. I feel the Michigan University consumer sentiment service shows relatively low levels in the last metric, and we see a clear bifurcation in the market there between households that own stocks and households that don't own stocks. So that is -- I believe this explains probably the resilience of our premium portfolio in the U.S. And as you could see in our performance, we continue delivering significant volume growth in the U.S. We are very pleased with our performance there, but it's very clear that we are outperforming markets by a mile there.

Our next question comes from Tom at Deutsche Bank.

Just you mentioned in the presentation, the growth of digital commerce and the channel shift in retail seems to be happening at an accelerated pace. Why would you be well positioned versus that channel shift, please? And any sort of details you could give me? We've got a bit more of an idea of what's happening in the U.S., but some sort of views on the pace of that channel shift in Europe, perhaps in India and some of your other larger markets would be great, please. And just a quick one just on China. Maybe any details on the improvement there and any impact of timing of Chinese New Year on Q4 growth, please?

Yes. Digital commerce is 17% of our revenue. I can give you some data. We are growing Amazon at 15%. We are growing walmart.com at 25%. We are growing Flipkart in India at 30%. We are growing TikTok globally at 70%. So our portfolio is much better suited now after the kind of reset we have done with disposals of value brands and with significant acquisitions in the premium segments, digitally native brands that are operating with a lot of success there. And I believe one of the reasons that we are delivering the type of growth that we are delivering in U.S. is that that's the portfolio with the highest exposure to e-commerce that we have globally. But we see similar trends in other markets. Of course, China India, quick commerce is accelerating a lot. Our quick commerce business in India is more than doubling this year. So we believe that our portfolio is well suited. Our capabilities are significant in that space. A lot of capabilities that were acquired to the business through the acquisitions we have done are really helping us in all these markets. So we are very, very happy with the development of e-comm, particularly in Beauty & Wellbeing in which the level of e-commerce is approaching 27%, 28% for our total business. China, Srini, do you want to talk about that?

So, on a China perspective, actually, it's quite encouraging for us. In the sequence of improvements, we had said that Indonesia will do much better, and it is doing much better. China, we said just given the macroeconomic conditions, we said we are making some fundamental changes to our business model, our go-to-market are updating our capabilities in e-commerce and also actually driving the ongoing premiumization of the portfolio, particularly in Beauty & Wellbeing, Vaseline and Home Care. What's really encouraging is that in quarter 4, all four of our business groups, I'm excluding ice creams, given where we are, have actually returned to positive growth, both from value terms and on volume terms. And just given the fundamental work that we have done, it positions us well going forward. Of course, as Fernando referred to, there is more work to be done in some of the channel shifts which are happening, notably Douyin and what does it really mean to compete. And that's where we are spending a lot of time and effort to really make it strategic, make it important and really play the full 6 piece to win in that channel. But overall, I think given where we are, we are confident in terms of our progress going forward.

Next question comes from Jeff Stent at BNP.

Three questions, if I may. The first one is, could you just shed a little bit more color on Mexico, which I think was down high single digit. What's happening there beyond the macro? And then secondly, do you still expect to grow hard currency earnings this year?

Yes. Mexico, we have seen soft markets there. If you look at the performance of the main retailer in Mexico, I feel in the last two quarters was around 1% and 4%. And that has basically reflected the fact that remittances reduction are having a significant impact in the economy. tariffs have created uncertainty and the GDP growth expected there is around 0.4% the last number I have seen there. So our competitiveness is strong in Mexico. So we don't have significant issues there, but we have seen margins really softening. And there are some significant promotional periods in Mexico, particularly during July. It's called July 3. Most of the retailers have significant activities and the pickup in that period has been relatively poor. So the macro in Mexico is not very good. We don't have any fundamental structural issue in our portfolio in Mexico. Our performance has been good. We have a great food business with Knorr there. We have an excellent deodorant business, and they are very, very solid in shares, but the market has been soft. Hard currency earnings?

So, Jeff, an important element for us is the gross margin trajectory and investment behind our brands. On both these elements, we are making solid progress. In fact, we had said that the 45% gross margin, all businesses included end of last year was really the base for us. All the three quarters, we have made continued progress. I've already explained to you some of the levers and the drivers in this respect. We are continuing to invest significantly behind our brands. We have said that we will continue to increase absolute spends every year. Even this year, we'll be actually increasing our absolute spends and our percentage of BMI will be in the range of 15% to 16%. What's really helping us is significant amount of work that we've done in terms of productivity across the value chain. Our program on productivity, we've already confirmed the about EUR 650 million of savings. We are looking to push that harder and get more out of that. We're going to be very disciplined in terms of our costs, which are within our control. That's going to become an important lever for us. We have done significant amount of work and found efficiencies in the taxation line. We've also had benefits coming through from our interest line. Summary, all these put together, we are confident of really having a positive hard currency earnings in the current year.

Our final question comes from Ed Lewis at Rothschild.

Yes. Just a couple of questions really just on Indonesia and China. Fernando, could you just put in sort of context how you feel about the performance, how good or bad, whatever the 12.7% growth in Indonesia is relative to your expectations? And also on China, backing growth in Q3, I think that might have been a bit earlier than we might have expected. So just the changes you made there, how they're having an impact and how you would assess performance there?

Well, thank you, Ed. In Indonesia, we are very pleased with the renewed leadership team we have put in place there and the progress they are doing in resetting the fundamentals of the business. We are operating now with historic low levels of stocks in our distributors. We have removed any fundamental issue of channel price conflict and that drag us down in 2024. We are relaunching our top brands in the market. We are stepping up significantly our social first marketing capability. As a result of that, we are seeing our run rates in Indonesia improving consistently quarter after quarter. We initiated this reset around July, August last year, and the results are solid. So we expect Indonesia to continue contributing to growth in the next quarters. In China, I feel that, Srini has been clear about it. We are pleased that our four business groups for the remaining company are back to growth in China. It's getting better slowly the market there. We have made significant interventions to disintermediate our route to market in e-commerce. We have set up significant manufacturing and logistics capability for direct-to-consumer delivery, and we are starting to see the benefits of these actions, and we expect that to continue improving in the next few quarters.

Thank you very much. That was our final question.

Let me finish, Jemma saying that I hope after the call it is clear that our major growth engines of Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care continue to deliver very strong performance, about 5% and 4%, respectively. Our shift to premium and digital commerce is accelerating. The performance in developed markets is strong. We are outperforming markets clearly, both in U.S. and Europe with U.S. being a clear standout in terms of our performance. Our emerging market performance is improving. India, in particular, is very, very well positioned over the medium term. The GST reform has had some impact in the short term, but we believe it's very good news for 40% of our portfolio with close to a 10% reduction. This will boost demand in the medium term. Indonesia and China continue to improve. And there are lessons learned in Latin America that will not be repeated in neither in Latin America nor in any other places. And our business in Latin America is structurally strong, remains intact and our shares have grown in six out of the last seven quarters there. All of these give us confidence for the remainder of the year in our ability to outperform markets, and as Srini mentioned, to deliver hard currency earnings growth. Thank you very much.