Company: CHD
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-019801
Chunk: 77

Company: CHURCH & DWIGHT CO INC /DE/
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1B
Chunk 77
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URCH & DWIGHT CO., INC AND SUBSIDIARIES(Dollars in millions, except share and per share data) 

•Cash provided by operations was $1,156.2 in 2024, a $125.6 increase from the prior year primarily due to an increase in cash earnings (net income adjusted for non-cash items).

•We returned $277.0 in 2024 to our stockholders through cash dividends paid.

Strategic Goals, Challenges and Initiatives 

Our ability to generate sales depends on consumer demand for our products and retail customers’ decisions to carry our products, which are, in part, affected by general economic conditions in our markets. While a vast majority of our products are consumer staples and less vulnerable to decreases in discretionary spending than other products, certain of our products, are more likely to be affected by consumer decisions to control spending.  Some retail customers have responded to economic conditions by increasing their private label offerings (primarily in the dietary supplements, stain fighters, diagnostic kits and oral analgesics categories), launching their own brands, and consolidating the product selections they offer to the top few leading brands in each category.  In addition, an increasing portion of our product categories are being sold by club stores, dollar stores, mass merchandisers and internet-based retailers.  These factors have placed downward pressure on our sales and gross margins.

We intend to continue to aggressively pursue several key strategic initiatives: maintain competitive marketing and trade spending, tightly control our cost structure, expand our online market share by continuing to invest in e-commerce (global on-line sales were 21.4% of consumer sales in 2024), expand our presence and product offerings to consumers outside of the United States, continue to develop and launch new and differentiated products, pursue strategic acquisitions, continue to grow our product sales globally and maintain an offering of premium and value brand products to appeal to a wide range of consumers.  Our global product portfolio consists of both premium (64% of total worldwide consumer revenue in 2024) and value (36% of total worldwide consumer revenue in 2024) brands, which we believe enables us to succeed in a range of economic environments.  We intend to continue to develop a portfolio of appealing new products to build loyalty among cost-conscious consumers.  We derive a substantial percentage of our revenues from sales of liquid laundry detergent. We continue to evaluate and vigorously address pressures on this business through, among other things, new product introductions and increased marketing and trade spending. 

Over