Colgate-Palmolive woes deepen with market share decay; stock falls 3.6%

Topline rises 6.6%; market share declines 350 basis points in two years

Shares of Colgate-Palmolive (Colgate), which were down 10.5 per cent in the past two months until Wednesday, slid another 3.6 per cent to Rs 1,083.90 on Thursday, despite the company posting better-than-expected profit for the June 2018 quarter (Q1). 

Investors are worried about the persistent decline in Colgate’s toothpaste market share, which may keep the stock under pressure. 

Alarmingly, the degree of fall intensified with the flagship product losing 100 basis point (bps) market share, sequentially in Q1 (versus 30-80 bps fall in the past quarters). This took the overall market share loss to 350 bps over the last two years. 

Thus, overall