The world's largest maker of batteries and razor blades, Gillette, said today fourth-quarter profit rose 73 per cent from a year ago when the company had large restructuring costs.
But excluding one-time items, profit from continuing operations fell 1 per cent as the maker of Duracell batteries, Mach3 razors and Oral-B toothbrushes spent more on advertising.
Gillette has been spending aggressively on advertising and promotion to try to drive up Duracell's market share. The company said earlier this month it plans to cut back on promotion in 2003 and will instead take a 13-per cent price cut on top-selling AA- and AAA-sized batteries to narrow the price gap with competitors.
Advertising costs rose 12 per cent for all of 2002 compared with the year earlier, the company said.
Gillette posted profit of $346 million or 33 cents a share compared with $200 million or 19 cents a share a year ago.
Sales rose 5 per cent to $2.53 billion. But volume, which excludes currency and price fluctuations, was up only 2 per cent, with the rest of the sales gain coming from currency changes. Gillette has benefited from the strengthening of the euro against the dollar.