Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC
LSE:RKT
If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Utilize notes to systematically review your investment decisions. By reflecting on past outcomes, you can discern effective strategies and identify those that underperformed. This continuous feedback loop enables you to adapt and refine your approach, optimizing for future success.
Each note serves as a learning point, offering insights into your decision-making processes. Over time, you'll accumulate a personalized database of knowledge, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.
With a comprehensive record of your investment history at your fingertips, you can compare current opportunities against past experiences. This not only bolsters your confidence but also ensures that each decision is grounded in a well-documented rationale.
Do you really want to delete this note?
This action cannot be undone.
| 52 Week Range |
4 014.2357
5 872
|
| Price Target |
|
We'll email you a reminder when the closing price reaches GBX.
Choose the stock you wish to monitor with a price alert.
This alert will be permanently deleted.
Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC
You don't have any saved screeners yet
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Reckitt Quarter 1 Trading Update Conference Call. On the call this morning to present the trading update are the CEO of Reckitt, Laxman Narasimhan, and CFO, Jeff Carr. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the call over to the CEO to start the conference call. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you all for joining our trading update call.There are 2 messages I have for you today. Firstly, we have had a good start to the year. This has been driven by stronger underlying execution, continued investment in the business and strong demand for our brands. We are encouraged by performance to date, and our 2021 outlook is unchanged. Secondly, our journey to rejuvenate sustainable growth is firmly on track. We're actively managing our portfolio, which is well placed to benefit in both the short and longer term. We're making focused long-term investments, and we have the right team in place to deliver our strategy. As a result, we remain confident in the delivery of our medium-term targets.Jeff will comment in more detail on our trading shortly, but let me first give you some highlights on group performance and some of the consumer demand dynamics we are seeing across the portfolio. We have delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 4.1% in the quarter, taking our 2-year stacked growth to over 17%. This growth is broad-based by brand and by geography and is led in particular by U.S. Hygiene. Here, we have seen continued strong demand for our trusted brands. Across the disinfection space, consumers see the use of our products with improved hygiene habits as a way of protecting their health and regaining freedom and normality in their lives. These trends give us confidence in the long-term opportunity for the category.As is to be expected, the underlying drivers of near-term demand for disinfecting products are dynamic as countries around the world are at significantly different stages of the pandemic. In some countries such as India and Brazil, the situation is deteriorating markedly, while others such as Australia and China have seen the virus almost entirely eradicated. This has an implication of the nature of behaviors that consumers exhibit. To be clear though, demand for hygiene does remain at elevated levels compared to pre-pandemic. We are therefore closely tracking shifts in consumer behavior to understand near-term supply and demand dynamics for our hygiene products and how these will unfold over the course of the year.There is also balance to this evolving consumer picture. As you know, the reduction in social activity in response to COVID has, for example, adversely affected parts of our business. For much of last year, we saw lower levels of demand for our sexual well-being category. And in the first quarter of this year, we have experienced an exceptionally weak cough, cold and flu season. But looking forward, as cases of COVID fall, social activity picks up. And as schools return, we do anticipate the return of other viruses as well, such as common cold and influenza. This, in turn, over time, benefits our cold and flu relief products. And we are similarly seeing trading up improvements for Durex in markets where social restrictions are being eased.As I have said before, our portfolio is constructed to benefit pre- and post-COVID and the inherent balance in our portfolio leaves us favorably paced to perform well in both the short and the longer term. And against this dynamic consumer backdrop, we are working hard to drive performance. In Hygiene, we continue to improve on-shelf availability for our customers to a bigger and expanded supply chain. And across our disinfection and germ protection portfolio, we are responding to consumer demand with new innovative products like Lysol on-the-go in our health business, Dettol Tru Clean, which is our first plant-based disinfectant. We are seeing elevated demand not only within our existing footprint, but as we build out our professional business, our Global Business Solutions business and also as we continue our geographic expansion.In Health, against an exceptionally weak cough, cold and flu season, we have been proactive in protecting share, benefiting from innovations such as Mucinex free form and Strepsils hurdles as well as the expansion of our Mucinex Night Shift range. And Gaviscon also continues to grow very strongly, as Jeff will detail.Finally, we are encouraged with the execution in many parts of our Nutrition portfolio. In the U.S. IFCN business, we continue to drive share gains thanks to innovation and strong in-market execution as well as in our brain supplement business, Neuriva. This innovation is grounded in our science platform.In China, the market remains challenging due to Hong Kong, but our team is doing a very good job. Our position versus our multinational peers remain strong, and we are taking share online. All in all, a number of moving parts in the quarter, but a good start to the year. As we have said before, you can expect us to be active managers of the portfolio migrating towards higher growth. The transactions to acquire Biofreeze and to dispose of Scholl are ongoing. And our strategic review of IFCN in China is also progressing well.As you know, sustainability is central to our purpose and strategy and runs through everything that we do. Last month, we formally released our 2030 sustainability roadmap centered around 3 pillars of purpose-led brands, a healthier planet and a fairer society. And I would encourage you to review our various publications which provide insights on our progress and targets.Reflecting the importance we are placing in this area, we are committing over GBP 1 billion of investment over the next 10 years built into our plans. However, we are already making tangible progress on this journey, and I am pleased that we have very recently been notified that our MSCI ESG rating has improved to AA, having held steady at single A for a number of years. This is a clear external validation of the work that has been underway at Reckitt. Our sustainably score currently sits at 20.8, and we remain focused on improvements here also. Let's be clear, there is a lot more to do in this area, but this is good progress.Finally, before I hand over to Jeff, a word on the team. I'm delighted that Filippo Catalano has recently joined the company as our Chief Information Digitalization Officer. In doing so, he completes our senior management team. I know the team is keen to meet with investors and analysts, and we plan to hold an event in due course for exactly this.And with that, I will hand over to Jeff to run you through the numbers in more detail. Jeff?
Well, thank you, Laxman. As he mentioned, net revenue grew by 4.1% on a like-for-like basis and reported net revenue declined 1.1%, up to GBP 3.56 billion as a result of a 5.2% foreign exchange headwind, reflecting primarily the weakening of the U.S. dollar and the number of developing market currencies against sterling. Now it's important to remember that our like-for-like growth builds on a very strong performance in the comparative period where we had growth of 13.3% due to the significant growth in March 2020 as COVID started to distort the typical purchasing patterns affecting our categories in different ways.So very briefly, I look at the 3 reporting segments. In Hygiene, net revenue grew 28.5% on a like-for-like basis to GBP 1.641 billion. Whilst largely volume-led, revenue also benefited from a 5.9% price/mix movement, mainly due to lower promotional activity in North America compared to the first quarter of 2020. Lysol continued to deliver strong growth in the quarter, benefiting from favorable underlying demand trends and strong sell-in to greater aisle presence and a degree of retailer restocking given our ongoing improvements in supply.The brand performance was also driven by GBS and our geographic expansion. Together, these contributed to some 400 basis points to Hygiene's growth in the quarter. Other brands continued to perform well, with double-digit growth in Air Wick and Finish, and this was particularly strong in North America as we benefited from the ongoing stay-at-home dynamics.Turning to Health. Net revenue was down 13% on a like-for-like basis to GBP 1.123 billion, and this reflected volume declines of 14.2% and a small price mix improvement of 1.2%. Within Health, Dettol was stable in the quarter, reflecting the strong comparatives from prior year, particularly in China, which was the first market to see an uplift in trading related to COVID. However, overall, our revenue remained significantly higher than the levels seen pre-COVID.Our OTC performance -- our portfolio declined by just under 40% due to the exceptionally weak cough, cold and flu season, which impacted Mucinex, Strepsils and Nurofen. This was partly offset by a very strong performance in Gaviscon where we continued to take share in a growing market due to the ongoing benefits of the recent innovations and supply improvements. Durex was up double digits, driven by more favorable market conditions in China compared to the first quarter of 2020 and our PU innovation, which was launched in October 2020, which continues to support improved market share in China.Finally, moving on to Nutrition. We saw revenue decline 7.4% on a like-for-like basis to GBP 742 million. The U.S. infant formula business declined in line with the market as it left the pantry loading of March 2020, but we're pleased with our market share performance. In China, market conditions remain difficult that we're now beginning to lap the impact of the Hong Kong border closure, which fully came into effect in March of 2020. As Laxman already mentioned, our market share position in Mainland China is robust relative to our multinational peers.Elsewhere, Latin America saw revenues up mid-single digits, and we're seeing improved trends in our ASEAN market. A common dynamic across the businesses has been a decline in birth rates, which is likely to remain a headwind for the remainder of the year. VMS declined slightly in the quarter as Airborne begins to annualize very strong comparatives last year. The brand is also impacted by the decline in the cough, cold and flu season, given its position as an immune support brand. Again, it's important to note that despite this decline, Airborne revenues remained significantly higher than the base year of 2019.Elsewhere, we're very pleased with the performance of Neuriva, our brain supplement product, which was launched in 2019.So let me wrap up with a comment on our outlook. We had an encouraging start to the year. However, it's still early in the year. And as we set out in the full year results just over 2 months ago, we expect to deliver like-for-like revenue growth of flat to plus 2% for 2021. Our guidance for adjusted operating profit margin is unchanged and expected to be between 40 and 90 basis points lower than the 23.6% reported for full year 2020. We're seeing increasing commodity cost inflation, especially across dairy, palm oil and transportation. However, we're feeling good about our progress in terms of productivity and where appropriate, we will consider pricing action when required. The reduction in margin will be weighted towards the first half of the year as we annualize a significant step-up in investments in the second half of 2020 and as a result of the decline in OTC revenue.So with that, I'll hand back to Laxman. Thank you.
Well, thank you, all. Thank you, Jeff. I think it's time for questions. And so I'm going to hand this to the operator to guide us through that. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] We are taking our first question from the line of Guillaume Delmas at UBS.
Laxman and Jeff, 2 questions for me. My first question is on your second quarter because you will benefit from several tailwinds in the quarter from the reversal of last year's revenue adjustment to ease your comps in OTC and of course, in Nutrition, both in LatAm and in China. So appreciate still a lot of uncertainty around disinfection. But at this stage, any additional reason that would prevent you from achieving a sequential acceleration in your like-for-like sales growth in Q2 relative to the 4% posted in Q1?And then my second question is on commodity and distribution costs. I mean you've reiterated your margin guidance for the year. You're also flagging a more challenging cost pressure environment than anticipated a couple of months ago. So question here is, what are the levers you'll be pulling to mitigate this headwind? You mentioned pricing, but given that you've invested significantly behind price competitiveness last year, I would assume at this stage a more cautious approach to pricing for 2021.
Guillaume, let me take those questions. Look, we're not -- I'm not going to get into quarter-by-quarter guidance on revenue. We've been clear that our full year guidance, which is quite specific and quite narrow, north of 2%. We started the year well with 4.1% in terms of like-for-like, and we're pleased with the way it's going. So I'm not going to get pulled into specific guidance on Q2.Yes, of course, we saw some areas of our business where the pantry loading from March left us with lower volumes in the second quarter, but we also saw very strong impacts from other brands. I think on commodity costs, I think we're seeing commodity cost inflation, as you said, higher than we had expected in February. And I think that's in line with most of our peers and also in areas like transportation. We have many levers that we can pull. Clearly, we have an incredibly strong productivity program. I'm very pleased with the way that that's going. We're very much on track to deliver against the GBP 1.6 billion savings over the 3-year period. And clearly, that's a very important lever for us.You're right that we are cautious on pricing because we have just adjusted and taken a margin adjustment to adjust some of the outliers on price. And so as we look to take pricing, we will be very cautious and we will only move where it makes sense to move. But those are the levers, those are key levers that we have to make sure that we can manage our way through the year and deliver against our margin expectations.
We're taking our next question from the line of Iain Simpson at Barclays.
A couple of questions from me, if I may. Firstly, in IFCN, can you give any indication as to what the growth in there might be ex Greater China, just to give us an idea as obviously, that business is being strategically reviewed? And then in Dettol, I was interested that you said that Dettol China Q1 '21 was double 2019, so double the kind of pre-COVID rates. Are you be able to give any indication as to whether you think that kind of hygiene stabilizing at double pre-COVID rates as it moves post-COVID for Dettol and Lysol is kind of the right number to use elsewhere in your business?And then just lastly, if I may, on your financing items. I think you've still got a sort of 3% marginal cost of debt which looks a little bit high given that potentially going to finish this year on under 2x net debt EBITDA versus sort of peak of 4 post-meet when you did the financing. Is there any scope to refinance any of that debt with the foreseeable future?
Let me take the financing question first. We have got a little -- you're right, the finance -- the cost of financing is a little higher than we would normally see. It's primarily at that level on the basis that we may -- we haven't fully decided on our plans, but we may take some cost to refinance the significant bond refinancing that's due in 2022 and may take some of that early. So that's one of the reasons we've kept that guidance a little higher than it would normally be. And obviously, as we refinance that, yes, there is an opportunity to bring that cost down.Let me also take the question on growth in IFCN, and I'll hand over to Laxman on the Hygiene question in terms of the ongoing levels. Our China IFCN number was in double digits in terms of decline in the quarter. So clearly, the ex China number was significantly better than the 7.4%, but that's in quarter 1 2021 where we also saw significant pantry loading in the prior year comparatives. So I wouldn't take that as an ongoing run rate. We saw significant pantry loading, for example, in March 2020 in the U.S.So all in all, ex China, as I think we said last year, we were running very much positive in terms of IFCN ex China last year. And I'd expect that we can continue to run very much positive like-for-likes ex China. And the margins ex China are also significantly higher than the total segment levels as well. So very much the focus in the strategic review was on China for those reasons.Laxman, would you like to comment on Hygiene?
Iain, on the hygiene question, let me just talk about Dettol. I think what Jeff was saying was that the demand for Dettol that we're seeing is stable relative to what we saw last year, which was a north of 50% growth in Dettol. Naturally, what you see there in some of the lead markets is that if you think about both penetration and frequency, that as the virus plays itself out and as people are vaccinated, there's mobility, there's mask mandates that are released. What you do see is changes in frequency. You also might see in some ways a softening of penetration in some of the core products that do exist in that market.The way we have offset that is what we said before, which is we're broadening the shoulders of this brand -- of the brands, not just Dettol or even Lysol. In addition to that, we are taking the brand to new places, we said 70 countries by the end of this year and new spaces, the Global Business Solutions business, in particular. And what we see there with the demand there as people become more mobile, as they are looking for cleaner spaces at pieces of work as well as in transportation. And so development clearly is showing up in a different way in the sense of hygiene as consumers evolve.So going forward, what we are doing is we recognize that the tradition of use will, in fact, get more muted. But we're offsetting that by broadening the brand and by taking it to new places and new spaces. And that's the way we're looking to manage overall hygiene demand as it plays itself out, both during COVID as well as post-COVID.
We're taking our next question from the line of Bruno Monteyne at Bernstein.
My first question is around the future of flu season. I obviously understand why it's done now. But if I think about the next few years, you're expecting hand hygiene to remain strong, but that would probably mean flu transmission should be down. On top of that, people trying to talk about the regular topics for COVID vaccinations which might sort of impact the flu season as well. So would it be realistic to expect that the flu season will never come back to what it was simply because of the different behaviors post-COVID? That would be my first question.The second one is that you mentioned the big reductions in your CO2 emissions as part of your recent plans. Can you just confirm those numbers, the minus 50%, is that scope 1, 2 scope 3 emissions or only 1 to 2?And my last question is on the big boost you had from pricing and Lysol. And you said the U.S., there was much less promotional intensity. Would it be fair that you'd expect that promotional intensity to come back in the second half of the year? Or do you think those retail conditions will remain for the rest of the year?
Thank you. On the flu season, pre-pandemic, the global stats where the 20% of people wash their hands after going to the bathroom. The number for the U.K. is 32% for men and 66% for women. If you look at what's happened over the course of the pandemic, 86% of consumers are telling us that they were adopting cleaner habits. We also expect that coming out of it, and we're seeing this with consumer work in markets like Australia and Israel and so on, that people expect to retain some of their new habits that they have acquired over the course of the last year. No question that is the case.But having said that, the headroom that you have in terms of hygiene behavior adoption is still very large. If you look at the flu season and look at what is it that sort of at [ summary ] really drives that or what is it that we look at as we look at the flu season, we're looking at school openings. We're looking at social mobility and office openings. And what we've seen is that many of these line of viruses actually do transmit. There isn't a flu vaccine per se, there's a COVID vaccine, and there'll probably be further shots that people can take year-over-year. But as we see greater interaction between people, we will see flu's return.Now we're seeing this in some of the more advanced markets already. We're seeing the fact that as things open up and as mask mandates go and people socialize, we are seeing greater incidence of flu. It's too early for us to share all that data with you, but the reality is we are seeing that. Now some of this will play itself out over the course of this year and next year, but there's no question that flus will come back. Colds will come back. It's not like colds will go away. And so I think that what has happened, particularly with social distancing, mask mandates and the kind of behaviors that people had last year, is what happened was that you did see the double peak that a lot of people said would happen, which is you would have both a combination of a COVID peak as well as a cold and flu peak happen at the same time.So the hygiene behaviors really matter. An important time where you don't have a vaccine or you don't have antivirals, the only thing you can really put in place are these nonpharmaceutical interventions. And hygiene is a very important part of that. On your question on the emissions, it's really about Scope 1 and 2, not Scope 3. Was there a third question, Bruno?There was a question on Lysol promo activity. We fully expect that as competitive activity goes up over the course of the year, we will see the return of the appropriate measures to ensure that our propositions are competitive in the marketplace.
We are taking our next question from the line of Tom Sykes at Deutsche Bank.
Firstly, just on the restocking aspect within Hygiene, are you able to say just how strong that was and where would you put inventories at your customers versus where you would expect them to be, i.e., what restocking benefit may help with a glide path downwards in, if at all, in Hygiene in Q2? And then thank you for your comments on Hygiene before, but I wondered if you could maybe dive a little bit deeper into any early learnings in the U.S. that you're seeing as different states open up at different rates on what usage you're seeing there?And maybe is there, again, a demographic difference you're seeing younger customers reduce frequency a bit more often? Is the area of real competition and where gains might be made in sort of older demographics at all, please?
So on your question on restocking, I think as we had mentioned earlier, late last year as well as in February in the case of Lysol in the U.S., in particular, there was a supply and demand imbalance. We were still working to increase supply. We were still working to improve customer service rates. We've operated with fewer SKUs that we traditionally have across our entire portfolio. And what you can see us do is expanding supply, improving customer service, and we think the demand and supply will converge over the course of the second quarter.We're also appropriately reflecting what we have in stores to the offer that we have and the sell-out that we get. And so restocking is clearly underway. And I think that over the course of Q2, we will clearly have the ability for us to ensure that demand and supply are converted in the case of the U.S. in particular. It's been less of an issue in some of the other markets, but even in those markets, something you'll see, a very similar dynamic.On your question about early learnings in the U.S., I think -- first of all, I think if you look at our penetration, it's an over U.S. -- over half of U.S. households. As states open up and differentially, we have seen the interplay in our portfolio play itself out. We're clearly seeing is that -- we are clearly seeing that there are -- we're clearly seeing that we have the ability to see consumer behavior play itself out particularly in things like cold and flu. The way you have mask mandates, where you have distancing, you obviously see a greater impact on cold flu than you do in some of the other states where you don't. And so I think that this is going to pay itself hard over the course of the year.In terms of consumer segments, in particular, I think it's fair to suggest that there's a greater degree of care and caution with the more older consumers and folks that are truly impacted with COVID and potentially some of the more younger ones. Although I think we have seen behavior shifts also happen with some of the younger consumers who have joined the franchise.
We're taking our next question from the line of Pinar Ergun at Morgan Stanley.
Laxman, you've just touched on this, but just to be a little bit more clearer, in OTC, have you seen any green shoots in demand in countries where you see some reopening? Can you share any examples with us? In -- and then the second one is on Durex and Gaviscon, the growth was very strong at double digits. Could you please elaborate on what you attribute this to? Is it primarily an acceleration of market growth? Or do you see your investments from last year starting to bear fruit?And then one final quick one on the margins. You've made some comments on H1, H2 margin pacing. Would you be able to give us some color around the different moving parts, please?
Thank you, Pinar. I'm going to take the first and the second question, and Jeff will take the third one on margin. On OTC, first of all, OTC is taken in its entirety, but the reality is that what we see in our cough, cold and flu franchise is different from what we're seeing in brands like Gaviscon and some of the local jewels that we have spread across the entire company. On OTC, it's early days. But if you look at what's been impacted negatively because of the cough, cold, flue incidence being down so much, it's Mucinex gets impacted and a brand like Nurofen for children gets impacted because of the cough and cold.We also had an issue last year, if you recall that we had an issue where there was misinformation about ibuprofen that was put online sometime around now, which actually had an impact on Nurofen. And in fact, had Nurofen sales drop because of supposedly, people said that there's a linkage between that and COVID. And unfortunately, that was not really proven. As things have evolved, what we see is Nurofen is sequentially gaining share. And in fact, In Australia, for example, Nurofen is back to the share gains that it had prior to COVID. If you look at Mucinex, our focus has been on execution. And if you look at our market shares in Mucinex, they're steady. So we've held share through this period.Now back to your point about incidents and what are we seeing early days. But if you look at Australia, what you are seeing in Australia is actually growth in this category. Now peak of the season doesn't necessarily play itself out in the Southern Hemisphere until, let's say, late May or June, so it's a little early for us to actually point to it and say there's shoots, but we are clearly seeing that there. And now the question, of course, is how they're then going to play itself out across the rest of the world, so that's clearly something we are monitoring and watching. So that's on OTC.On your question of Gaviscon and Durex, in the case of Gaviscon, we have a proven model that works well we introduced across different markets. It's a very clear playbook. And once we enter, we know exactly what to do over a period of time to build penetration, to build frequency, to grow share in that business. And one of the things we realized over the last 18 months is there was a real capacity shortfall in Gaviscon, that one of the investments we have made is actually in capacity for Gaviscon. And what you're seeing with the growth in the business is actually a realization of the capital that we've allocated to Gaviscon, and the fact that you're seeing the growth there is a direct correlation with that if there's more to come.If you look at Durex, and if you go back about 19 months or so, we actually have the major challenges, particularly around thin condoms in China. And it's a very focused work around ensuring we solve that issue technologically and then over time with a brand launch and execution in stores. If you look at our market shares in Durex China, they're back to being a majority. If you look at execution in stores upon sale, much stronger. If you look at distribution in places like India where we used to be at 75,000, we're over between 105,000 and 110,000 right now before the lockdowns and before some of the recent incidents. So we see the thing playing itself out over the course of the year with greater distribution.So -- and there's work going into the space in sexual wellbeing just on how we reinterpret these categories. We acquired a small brand called Queen V late last year that we expect will find its way to the market later this year. So if I look at what's happening in health and I look at what's happening overall with OTC and what's happening with Gaviscon and Durex and particularly your question, what you see is a result of the investments we are making in capacity, the investments in capability improvements and execution, the much better customer service. And if you look at our customer service scores, they've significantly improved over the course of the last 15 months. All that gives me confidence that as things turn that our business is set up to grow, particularly as we think about next year.
Thanks, Laxman. Let me take on the margin question and give a bit more clarity on H1, H2. I think, first of all, Pinar, if we go back to last year, we achieved 23.6% in total, but there was quite a shift in H1, H2 last year. We had 24.5% in the first half of last year and 22.6% in the second half. The first half obviously benefited from high degrees of leverage. And at the same time, if you recall, we had not really started the investment program in significant spend levels. And then as the investments kicked in, in the second half of the year, we saw that clearly implemented and impacting the margin. So as we left last year, the run rate of $22.6 million is more of a better indication of where we expect the first half of this year to be.Now in addition to that, we have an OTC mix challenge, very high-margin cough and cold products, which are at significant low levels, somewhat offset by additional leverage from Hygiene. But overall, that's a negative mix impact. So we do expect the first half margins to be down significantly on last year, not least because last year, we haven't made the investments that were now investments in capability that Laxman mentioned.And then as we go into the second half of the year, you can do your own math, but we've given guidance that we'd be down 40 to 90 basis points versus last year. So clearly, you'd expect then to see the second half of the year balance that out with a stronger margin. I hope that gives some clarity. Obviously, on top of that, we've talked about the commodity cost increases, and we talked about the levers that we've got to offset that which includes our productivity program, and it includes targeted pricing where we see the opportunity to adjust pricing.
We are taking our next question from the line of Celine Pannuti at JPMorgan.
My first question is on Health. I want to -- because there were several points made on flu season and the fact that you're still quite impacted by overall what the flu season does. So first point is, on your innovation and with your new R&D head that came last year, do you think that you have enough capability organically to steer your portfolio towards other subcategories? And which would that be?And second point on the same topic is we've seen increasing activity from some of your competitors to buy assets in nutrition, vitamin and mineral, and you seem to have been absent of that. So I just want to understand what is your appetite and how do you see this category?And lastly, just to doublecheck on Nutrition. So you expect ex China to see a positive growth. Does that encompass the lower birth rates? So even with the low birth rate this year, you're happy with that? And I'm just trying to understand why Mainland China was -- it seems quite negative if you say that your market share is competitive.
Celine, thank you. Let me go to the Health question which I think is an R&D question. So with our new R&D head, what we have been working on is recasting our R&D across 7 major technology platforms. OTC is a clear area of focus for us. And there are several things that we're working on, including things that we do as well as in-licensing that is available to us. That will essentially form the pipeline for our OTC innovations that we will bring to market over the next several years. So I feel good about the progress being made. Not all of it is frankly arrived at the market yet, but I think you should be aware that if I go back to just the Mucinex free form which is rated the best new product in the U.S. in one of the surveys done and the strength of Mucinex Night Shift, which actually did very well as well in the whole IRI basis survey last year as 1 of the top 25 introductions across all the consumer products.I think we feel that we have a pipeline internally that we are investing behind, and that is part of where the investment is going, particularly in R&D is to ensure that we can organically get enough firepower in the LDC business in order for us to drive that business higher. So clearly, there's work going in that space. And I feel good about that, but it isn't just what's we're doing organically. It's also partnerships and suppliers. It's about in-licensing capability we've been building. All of that will help us become much better organically -- organic innovators in that space.On your second question around the number of vitamins, minerals and supplements acquisitions that have been made, look, we look at all of these. We look at all of these. And at this moment in time, we are pleased with the portfolio we have. As you know, we recently acquisition Biofreeze. We're divesting so we have a business that is going through a strategic review. And I think our focus is on ensuring that we spend the time getting that right. And so it isn't that we haven't looked at any of these. Science -- the science space is very important for us as we look at many of these deals. And so I think that's the way I would answer your question on the Nutrition front.On your question on market share. I think the point that Jeff was trying to make there was if you look at our market share relative to the full suite of multinational competitors, our share is growing. But the share of multinationals, cumulatively relative to local players, is not. And I think within that, if you look at our e-commerce share, e-commerce share is strong or growing. So that's really what you're trying to suggest.And finally, if you look at your question about growth rates, ex China in the case of Nutrition, recall, we have a combination of things going on. We have a specialty business that continues to grow. We have better execution at ASEAN. We've had some challenges in the last 3 years at ASEAN, the execution is improving. And despite the fact that we have a lower growth rate in many of those markets, we feel good about the growth that we're beginning to see there. We also have the planned shutdown of a dryer in Latin America. And so you have that as well working and you look at shares in Latin America for us to be Mexico, they are growing.So it's both -- despite the fact that the overall environment in the infant formula business is challenged by the lower birth rates, there are very specific areas of growth opportunity that we see. And we also see the strength and the performance of our innovations that are coming to market. So I think that cumulatively put together gives us confidence in the fact that ex Mainland China or ex Greater China, we will see growth in the infant business going forward.
Laxman, can I just -- if you don't mind, can I just add as well? The reason that China numbers are still negative, it's still largely driven by Hong Kong as well. I mean, clearly, the toll border closure kicked in, in March 2020, and that impacts the numbers in quarter 1 clearly.
We are taking our final question from Martin Deboo at Jefferies.
Two quick ones to finish this off. Back to the issue of stock level, this time in OTC. Where do you think stocking traded in OTC, particularly in cold and flu-dependent brands like [ new connection ] at the end of Q1? The sense what's behind my question, is it in a good place? Or is there a danger that sell-in in Q2 could be impaired because the train is carrying too much stock? And the final, final one is just very quickly, what are you seeing real time in Dettol in India? Any positive impact and uplift from what's going on there?
I think -- Martin, let me take both questions. On the first one, when you have a contraction of a category at the level that you have and it hasn't been abnormal selling at all last year, you're still going through the second quarter with a decent level of inventory in the system. So we fully need to work that through as we go into the back half of the year. There's no question that is the case. I think if I get to your second question about Dettol, what you see in Dettol is -- and the situation in India is obviously very difficult. And our heart goes out to all the people in the country and what they're really facing.Q1 was strong overall for the business. And we do see pickup in Q2, given sort of recent weeks of business. But we recognize there's obviously uncertainties over time. Lockdowns, et cetera, might come into India at some point in time in more markets than do exist. But having said that, the brand is very strong, very highly recognized. And our focus in India at this point in time is to do 3 things: our focus is to use our voice in the various platforms that we have to ensure that India gets the help it needs; second, we are protecting our employees and their families, encouraging vaccination provided fully, et cetera; and thirdly, we're using the amount of money that we have, particularly in brand equity investments in order to reinforce the messaging that will help consumers change their behavior to break the chain of infection.And as you know, we've been involved with multiple things in India over the last many, many years. We've been in India since 1936 or so. And we have partnerships with various state organizations where it's public health organizations as well as with religious groups. And we're working with all of them to ensure that the messages are well laid out so that we can break the chain of infection in India, which as you know is clearly alarming.Just before I wrap up, I want to make one clarification to the question on the environmental targets because I have taken that to be a 2013 question -- a 2030 question. But just to give you a quick sense of it, at 65% absolute for Scope 1 and 2 by 2030 and 50% Scope 3 by 2040. So that's the way to think about it. So Scope 3 clearly is a bit more back-ended. And again, you have all these commitments laid out in the reports that we have online. So hopefully, that clarifies it further as well.So thank you all for joining us. In summary, we have had a good start in the year with like-for-like revenues up over 17% on a 2-year basis, and our journey to rejuvenate sustainable growth is firmly on track. We therefore feel confident in our outlook both for 2021 as well as for the medium term. Thank you for the time this morning. And Jeff and I look forward to updating you again soon. Take care, and stay safe.
That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.