Nestlé S.A. (NESN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Nestlé presentation this morning. It's my great pleasure to welcome on to stage François Roger, Chief Financial Officer; and also Remy Ejel, EVP for the AOA Zone. François, over to you.

Thank you, Tom. Good morning to all of you. I'm here today with Remy Ejel, who is the CEO of our AOA region: Asia, Oceania and Africa. And we will do a specific presentation on the emerging markets for Nestlé. I will do cover the emerging markets for Nestlé, and Remy will deep dive into AOA. I take the disclaimer as read. Just as a quick reminder where we are today at Nestlé, largest food and beverage company in the world, as you know, CHF 94.4 billion of sales, trading operating margin of 17.1%. We're operating in about 186 countries, so a very wide presence across the globe with very strong presence in the U.S., which -- North America, which accounts for 35% of our total sales. We are playing in many different categories as well. We are very diversified by geography but by category as well in coffee, in pet care, in dairy, culinary, water and some other categories as well. We employ about 275,000 associates. We have about 344 plants. We have also 23 different R&D locations, and we are the largest spender of R&D in our industry with CHF 1.7 billion spent last year. We are, by the way, far less capital-intensive and labor-intensive than we used to be 10 years ago. We have about 80,000 less employees today, largely as a consequence of portfolio management. And we have about 100 less industrial units than we had 100 -- or 10 years ago as well. If we have the same look at emerging markets. Quite interesting, emerging markets account for 42% of our total sales. It's close to -- it was close last year to CHF 40 billion, with trading operating margin, which is actually higher than the average of the group on a comparable basis, at north of 18%. The strongest presence that we have is precisely with Remy in AOA, and Remy will go into the details of it. Then we have a very strong presence as well in Latin America, in China and in Eastern Europe. Category-wise, when we look at emerging markets, we have relatively similar footprint. So we are present in the same categories, more or less. But we are clearly overindexed in dairy, which is the second largest category that we have. And we are underindexed versus our portfolio in pet care. By the way, this one is clearly a very good opportunity for us in terms of future growth, and I'll come back to that. Interesting to see that we have about 60% of our employees working in emerging markets, 165,000 associates. And 55% of our industrial base is in emerging markets as well. And we have 5 dedicated R&D locations for R&D. I will cover a little bit more of that in details later in my presentation. But very strong footprint in emerging markets. We look at our track record in terms of growth over the last couple of years, quite attractive. It's actually OG, 6.6% on average over the last 10 years. It's better than the average of the group. It's about 1.5x higher. We were at 4.5% for the group. And this is quality growth as well. So it's a good combination of pricing and RIG, so which is interesting. Even you can see the RIG is above the average of Nestlé at 3% on average over the last 3 years. You can see that we don't have necessarily any specific worries about the fact that our RIG went down a bit last year. This is not so much a consequence of pricing but much more the consequence of a big surge in the year 2021. If you look at the average of '20, '21, '22, if you normalize it, we were in line with what we experienced in the past, which is around 3%. So really strong growth and quality growth and higher growth than the average of the group. So it's really a growth engine, emerging market for us. We have -- we're operating in basically all countries in emerging markets, but I just wanted to provide you a little bit more color on the top 6: China, Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, India, Chile, quite amazing. I mean, when you see the level of sales we have, it's really material and significant with a good profile in terms of growth. In most of these countries, we have experienced, over the last couple of years, pricing mid- to high single-digit growth with the exception of China. But the issue that we had in China, as you know, was really more focused on infant nutrition, which has started to really turn around the rebound last year. Part of the fact that we are -- the reason why we are so strong in emerging markets is also coming from the fact that we have been there. We've been operating in these countries for very, very long. In most of these countries, we have been present for more than 100 years. We are very much often perceived as a local company in many of these markets. I mean if you look in countries like Mexico, the Philippines, I mean, people in the street, they believe that Nestlé is a local company, not necessarily a Swiss company. Not -- so we have as well very strong brands. 75% of our brands are -- actually, of our sales are with the global brands like Nescafé, KitKat, Nido, Maggi and so forth. But we have a strong presence as well for local brands. Some good examples Remy will cover, for example, in the Philippines, Bear Brand, or in Indonesia as well, very, very strong brand in an Indonesian context. The second one, probably most of you can't read it, but it's Totole in China, which is a very strong local brand. But we have other brands like Carnation in Latin America, Nescau, Garoto, Ninho in Brazil that are very, very well positioned in their own markets -- in emerging markets. Not only do we have strong brands, but we have strong market positions, I mean, quite amazing when you see our position. We are often better positioned than local players. So there is a perception that in emerging markets, I mean, local players can really make a difference. No, no, we do. Look at that #1 position in Chile, in the Philippines, in Malaysia, in Thailand; #2 in Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria; #4 in India and Mexico. So even India, we are probably a little bit underindexed, I think, that probably Remy will talk about that and #5 in China. So we are the significant players in this market, and we don't really feel bad at all when looking at our business against local players. We have strong brands. We have strong market position, and you can see that as well through the fact that more than 80% of our sales are with #1, #2 position in this market. So we are very strong by choice and by design. We are not playing in all categories. But wherever we play, we win. So that's -- and I think Remy will cover some of the examples in this specific region, quite amazing. Strong brand, strong market position, a leading position but also strong reputation and strong trust. Quite amazing, it's an independent study that is done in emerging markets. And in 52% of the countries covered by this study, which is almost from a very large sample, in 52% of the cases in these emerging markets, we have -- we are #1 in terms of trust and reputation in our industry. And even if we look at it in 100% of the cases, we are within the 3 -- top 3 companies in terms of trust and reputation in this emerging market, so which is really, really impressive what we have built in these markets. And we have a significant share of stomach, which is often better than what we see in developed markets. If you look in developed markets, we have about 0.5% share of stomach of the entire food and beverage industry. The figure can look low. But I mean, this is over the total universe of food and beverage. And as we can see on the slide, in many markets, we have actually a better position than in the developed world in countries like Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico. We are even really leading the show there. But we have a big opportunity as well in countries like in India, in China, Nigeria or Indonesia, just to name a few. We clearly have an opportunity to grow faster and to grow in these countries, which is great for the coming years. We do -- we are very local, as I said, and we have been there for long. Another illustration of the fact that we are local, we have specific dedicated R&D center in emerging markets. We have 5 of them. We just opened a new one in Santiago de Chile. And -- but we are present in Africa, in India, in China and in Singapore as well, where we develop local products. Very close to -- we are really, really close to consumers in this market, so products that meet and that are tailored for consumer needs in emerging markets. And just a few examples there. I just put a couple of examples. I will just cover the last -- the one on the bottom right-hand side, Huevo Más, which is a plant-based product, which is an alternative to egg, which has a protein content, which is as good as egg, but it is a price point that is actually lower than egg. So it can be either a substitute or a complement to egg that we have developed for Central America. We sell that under the Malher brand, for example, in Central America, and the product is doing very well. So that's one of the examples of locally tailored innovation that is coming out of this specific R&D centers that we have in emerging markets. We do even, in some instances, launch products initially in emerging markets. You have the example on the top there of this new packaging. This is paper packaging for our Nescafé Dolce Gusto pods that we launched initially, I think, in Latin America, or you have some cold coffee products as well that have been launched in emerging markets before they have been launched even in the developed world. So really very strong presence and very strong innovation as well. We are not short of growth opportunities for the future. First of all, we operate in markets that are growing. These markets are -- will be growing in the future -- emerging markets in the mid-single-digit space over the next couple of years, and we ambition anyway to grow faster than the market and to gain market share. So we will grow at a higher level. We have really great opportunities. First of all, this is in emerging markets where you will see -- we will see population increasing. There is not much hope for an increase of the population in developed markets. But clearly, I think 98% of the increase of the population, which matters in our industry in the near future, will be coming from emerging markets. And in addition to that, we have a strong development in terms of purchasing power with the development of the middle class. So the number of households that will have higher income, and I think there, it's an income above $4 per day, is really going to increase, which is a superb opportunity for us. We have an opportunity as well in our categories. We mentioned for the 2 largest categories that we have: coffee and pet care. In coffee, it's quite amazing, but the coffee consumption in emerging markets is actually 6x lower than what it is in the developed world. So we have huge opportunities in countries like China and India, for example, in coffee. You could tell me, yes, but these are our tea markets. But when you look at what we have done because we have been really instrumental in Nestlé in developing that in the U.K. and in Japan, which were originally tea markets, which have become coffee markets, we are very positive about it. And pet care is a good illustration as well, where this calorific conversion rate, which is the number of cats and dogs that are using processed food instead of food leftover from the family table, the calorific conversion rate is about half in emerging market of what it is in the developed world. And we are pretty convinced of the fact that they will catch up. Anyway, if you look over the last 10 years, this calorific conversion rate for emerging markets specifically has increased by 7 percentage points in the last 10 years. So it's almost 1 percentage point a year. We can leverage as well on digitalization. And if we look at e-commerce, where some of [indiscernible] and especially in China, are actually more advanced in e-commerce than what we can see in the West. But that's really a good growth opportunity as well. And we are very well positioned in emerging markets because we are both in the mainstream segment, which is the bulk of our business, but we are in premium, which is growing very fast as well in emerging markets with the development of the middle class as well and in the affordability segment. We don't play in the affordability segment in developed markets, but we do, and it accounts for almost 20% of our business. And we are doing very well. Remy will provide you some great examples of what we have achieved in terms of affordability in emerging markets and more specifically in AOA. Finally, since I'm the CFO, let's talk a little bit about the financials for emerging markets. Very attractive. We have a margin which is higher than in the developed world, and we have a better return on invested capital in most of the sub geographies as well. And this is maybe a little bit counterintuitive, but this is largely the consequence of the fact that we have scale. We have massive scale, and there again, Remy will give you some example that are totally compelling. We have cost competitiveness as well, so which does help. So we are very big with really cost competitiveness in many of the categories where we play and we have the scale and efficiencies. We have leading position, as I showed you as well, and it does help. Usually, margins are very much correlated to our market position. And so -- and we are producing locally as well, as I illustrated by the fact that we have 60% -- 55% of our industrial base in emerging markets. So great. Very happy with what we have today in emerging market with superb growth opportunities, both on the top line and bottom line. That concludes my presentation. And I will leave the floor now to Remy, who will cover more specifically some of these topics for AOA.

Thank you. Thank you, François. A real pleasure to be with all of you. And of course, before I deep dive on giving a little bit of granularity related to AOA, I think it's important just to agree on the reason why we have the choice of grow by choice. With what you have seen from François like we see, like you do, immense opportunity to grow in emerging markets. And we have made a conscious decision not to grow by chance. We have rather chosen, and François alluded to it, to play selectively in opportunity, which are differentiated, where we have a higher ability to win and, of course, are able to deliver the potential that we see. The picture, the 4 pictures that you see. The first one, of course, reflects a little bit the diversity that exists. And the word diversity is going to come quite often when we talk about AOA as a zone. The first one is related to the picture of a mother in Pakistan with baby food. Next to it, we have our coffee, Nescafé, in Saudi Arabia. The third one is related to the energy drink, Milo, the #1 brand in Nigeria. And finally, we have indulgent KitKat being one of the largest market in Japan. As François said, Zone AOA accounts to 22% of total sales. Growth is distributed across 4 pillars, where we have, as we start at the East, Japan, Korea, Oceania; we have the ASEAN countries, sub-Asia subcontinent; and, of course, Middle East and Africa. From a geographical perspective, we have a broad footprint with, I have to say, AOA in 113 countries. From a category perspective, what is very interesting is, of course, we look at the split and the contribution of the different category. But to be a little bit more specific, and there was a lot of emphasis that was put by François on pet care, that's one of the most important opportunity that we see. And I will go a little bit more into details in relation with that. What is important to highlight also we have an opportunity in coffee, which is a very important category for us that we would like to further develop as we are slightly underindexed on that front. Over the last 10 years, we have delivered, as you can see, 5% organic growth, which is above the group average. What is important to highlight is our organic growth over the years has been quality growth, and it's not just pricing. The RIG delivered has been solid and consistently positive over the last decade. You can see from the chart on the right that the zone is highly profitable. Moreover, I think what is important to highlight is the profitability has been resilient and consistent over the year. This reflects our ability to generate scale, and scale is a key enabler in reality in order for us to be able to deliver also on our margins. This is done through synergies and cost efficiencies. When you look across the zone, there are different forces that are shaping the environment. And of course, this leads to different consumer needs but also, very importantly, opportunities that we focus on. The first one is access to essential and affordable food product are more important than ever, where especially in quite a few of our developing market where purchasing power is under pressure. And clearly, Zone AOA has a major share in providing the essential food product because of a large consumer base that is as of the floating class and above. We see, at the same time, I have to say, a polarization that is related to affordability but also a demand for premium product. And that's something that is another opportunity that we are seizing. Traditional. When we talk about the trade, if I look at total Zone AOA, 65% is traditional trade. Of course, we have some key markets like India, Philippines or Central West Africa, where the index is more than 80%. But it is true that today, technology has enabled us to extract efficiencies and to be able to move forward. In parallel, and I have to say after COVID hit us all, we saw a massive increase in e-commerce in markets like Korea and Japan that have an e-intensity that is actually higher than the group average. No doubt that more than just e-commerce, e-business is the way that we will engage with our consumer and customers to unlock the amazing opportunity we have. And we see this merge between the online and the off-line. I think François, you alluded also to the population. And there is no doubt that we have a young, vibrant population. If we look at just India, 65% is below the age of 30. Africa is forecasting significant also growth, not only 15 to 24 but, from a total number point of view, also older population. And we see an acceleration, of course, in Asia. In Japan that is part of AOA, already 50% of the population is above the age of 50. With those different forces, what is very important, and that's another word that you will hear often: focus, focus, focus. So we have 6 strategic priorities to accelerate our growth by choice. I will deep dive into our -- some of our key markets where we're accelerating growth. And I think François, you alluded to them. Next, I will share more details on the category where we want to continue to lead, and we believe we have a great opportunity to further unlock what has been done. And of course, how we will drive by growing by choice, capturing value opportunity, leveraging innovation and optimizing continuously, rigorously our portfolio in order to be future-ready for the channel of today, but I would say the channel of tomorrow. Of course, these strategic priorities are also always embedded in creating shared value under the good for you and good for the planet with our people, technology and ecosystem at the base of all of that. The 3 markets that we wanted to highlight today are the top 3 markets that we have. And of course, in those markets, and if you look at Philippines and India, as an example, we have been more than 100 years. This is where a base has been built. So that has been work of decade and decade that we have been able to do. What is important to highlight and to go a little bit more into detail, you see the market position. Those are the categories that we believe we can differentiate. Those are the categories where we are able to innovate and to drive the way forward. What is interesting to highlight, if you look at India, we had high single-digit growth. But I have to say also in the last 2 years, we moved to double-digit growth. And that's something that is also very exciting, not only for the group but, of course, for the team and also for our investors. How we have been able to do that? By developing and assessing the economic situation that is happening in India. And maybe we will have an opportunity to talk more about India. But -- and this is done through the rurban population penetration and innovation and, of course, investment going into manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem that have been built over the years as well as leveraging digital that is making a major difference. Philippines is another example where we have been able also to drive that and are able to deliver. And here, what is important to highlight that we have Nescafé and Starbucks that are at the upfront and moving that but also leading all children nutrition segment via affordable and premium, and that polarization we are able to see, and our model allow us to see those opportunity. I would like to spend a little bit more time on the category side and the 2 categories that we wanted to focus on. Coffee, an amazing category, #2 category at the level of the zone. But we believe we can have a further acceleration on that front. And here, it's by really expanding the consumption base and being able to deliver on that. We do that with, of course, the brand portfolio position allow us the wide portfolio that we have that to capture growth opportunity at different price points. This is an area that is important to us. And not only does it make sense across different price points, I think what is also important to highlight is also on-the-go occasion with the ready-to-drink. We are able to deliver double-digit growth in out-of-home channel and ready-to-drink. Portioned coffee has a solid long-term potential. And that's a solution that is for sophisticated home. And here, you have the example of Starbucks that has delivered very strong results. Pet care, we are doing the hard work. And you know historically, the challenge was related also to supply. So we are doing the hard work in terms of building up capacity and establishing our local supply chain. We have a range of significant opportunity. But the strategy, again, is a growth by choice strategy. I mean, we focus on focused expansion and activating the right portfolio in the right market, building, of course, on existing opportunity in Oceania but also other opportunity in Southeast Asia and, of course, seeding emerging markets like India or South Africa. And then, of course, continue to scale. We expect that business to grow faster than the zone average. It's quite interesting when you look also on the total portfolio, and I think you saw the number that were for all the emerging market, you would see that the number for AOA in terms of affordable is actually even higher. And that comes from the geographies in which we compete, with 28% that is on affordable and 15% on premium. Clearly, those are 2 segments that today, in today's world, are growing faster than mainstream. And this is where we are strong. This is the business that has been built decade after decade. And it's not related to a product. It's not related to an SKU. It's the whole value chain, the industrial footprint that we have to talk about. What I would like to also share with you is, in reality, even in this segment, we have been able to capture many value opportunity to be able to grow the segment and deliver stronger margin even. In Philippines, dairy, we extended the consumer journey of the very strong popular brand from children, Bear Brand -- from children to adult, besides introducing also a higher NNS in reality per kg product that is the ready-to-drink pack to capture the liquification. And those are some of the opportunities that are there. In India, food, and that's one of the subjects that is very close to our heart, is today one of our most trusted brand. And of course, with a growing middle class, a greater expectation is seeking new and healthy culinary experience, both from family and kids. We introduce not only new flavor and variant but also other format, on-the-go format where we are able to deliver even higher value. And finally, we take an example in AOA of developed market, Australia. We valued our base offering with Starbucks, both in-home with our coffee machine capsule and out-of-home with bottle and multiple variant. François highlighted also the R&D, and I think that's an essential part because when we talk about growing by choice in the category that are important to us, it's related to, in reality, innovation. It's related to nutrition. And when we talk about that, we're talking not only about the product in itself but also with the packaging institute. I would like to share with you 2 examples, which is the Milo that you see in the second column with the sugar reduction technology that we have been able to develop. As you know, Milo is one of our flagship brands in Malaysia. We introduced a sugar reduction technology substituting the green barley, evergreen malt extract with MEA malt. This led a 15% reduction in sugar versus the recipe base. What is important to say is also from a consumer point of view, the taste remains the same. The other example that is just beside that is, of course, KitKat. And today, we're proud to share with you the soft plastic wrapper that have been launched in reality for the KitKat 4 finger in Australia that is made by 30% recycled plastic. In our grow by choice model, of course, there are, first, the starting point for us is choose where to play. And then the second part is, of course, evolving the business model to the changing environment. We talked a lot about cutting the tail and pushing the head, and that's a subject that could be also interesting for us to go more. But also protecting, investing, focusing behind the jewel. And at the same time, making choices for us to be able to deliver. Of course, these 4 blocks are self-explanatory and exist across the majority of FMCG company. The area where we differentiate is probably the action of fast-tracking our digitalization journey across the different geographies that we operate. The strength of Nestlé is we can develop in reality and pilot. And then quite quickly, we are able to expand. Midas is an example that is quite interesting. It's our real-time analytics solution that is built on an enterprise level data warehouse, integrating internal and external data that translate it to make it better to read analytics and feed and fire up our intervention to be able to be faster. This has demonstrated, and the pilot was done in India, reduced unbilled outlet, out of stock and, of course, improved freshness. This is now being scaled to 8 markets by the end of 2023. And of course, we are starting to leverage Midas, as an example, in supply chain, extending cross-functionality in another 3 markets. In our grow by choice, I mean, there is, of course, the many countries, and that's a recurring challenge that we have in AOA is related to they face a double burden of over and undernutrition. And hence, it's important that we continue to deliver nutrition. At the same time, doing good for the planet and reducing gases, and maybe that's another subject we can go into more detail into. Maybe on that slide, 2 elements I would just like to highlight. One of our competitive advantages is our people. And 80% of local senior management and the spirit and the reality that is there, the way that we operate the entrepreneurial spirit, I should say. What I would like to -- because I'm aware that time is over. Just to leave 5 key messages. We are leading in key geography, with very strong market position in growing categories where we are able to differentiate. Building on a local heritage that has been established through decade with very strong brand, not only overall Nestlé but specific brands that are leading the category. And with a dynamic team, we're able to unlock that opportunity. And of course, making choices, growing by choice is clear for us a way forward that we have been leveraging, and we will continue to do that to ensure sustained profitable growth. Expand presence in fast-growing and fast-emerging segment, building impactful innovation to have a portfolio that answers the different changing consumer need that from affordability related to make it more accessible or the expectation of premium. And very important today, the enhanced competitive advantage through digitalization that is enabling us to further accelerate. Thank you for your attention.

Okay. Thank you very much, indeed, Remy, and thank you very much, François. We have a short time for Q&A now. There will be some microphones coming around. Perhaps if I -- if you put your hands up, they will come to you. I'll maybe kick off the Q&A. And just with relevance to emerging markets, then there's a lot of debate on pricing. In your experience, is higher food price inflation in emerging markets followed by deflation or stickier pricing going forward?

I would say -- but maybe Remy can complement as well. Well, first of all, we have seen a very resilient consumer in emerging markets in spite of the fact that we had to put through quite significant pricing. We, in emerging market, would represent a larger part of their disposable income, very often 20% to 25%. So consumers have probably less opportunities to cut on that one to start with. The second thing is that economies in emerging markets probably benefited from the cycle of commodities and so forth. So there has been quite a lot of redistribution probably of wealth as well as we have some money in these countries, which probably ended up as well in a positive way in the fast-moving consumer good industry. We have strong brands as well. We have strong market position, as you could see. So I think that as a consequence of that, we have not suffered too much from pricing. We need to pay attention to one thing as well, which is historically in terms of pricing, it was not only driven by the commodity cycle or input cost inflation, but very often as well, pricing was linked to currency depreciation. And we have seen traditionally a lot in Latin America, but we start seeing a little bit more of it in the AOA, for example, which is something that we are monitoring carefully.

Okay. And please, could you maybe give some insight into the evolution of your marketing spend, the evolution of it last year in the categories which were a drag and how you see that developing as a percentage of sales going forward?

Yes, very important question. So we like investing for our future growth, which can be marketing, can be sustainability, digitalization, CapEx, R&D as well. And this is what we have done historically. Last year was a little bit of an unusual year. We reduced our marketing spend in absolute value and as a percentage of sales, first of all, because we did not -- we had some capacity constraints in pet care, with Coffee-Mate, for example, in the U.S. There was no point in advertising for products we could not sell more anyway because we have capacity constraints largely linked to the pandemic to a certain extent. The other thing is that last year, we decided to spend more on promotional spend, which is what we call trade spend, and I'm talking of performance trade spend that what ends up with -- in the hands of consumers is not what goes to the retailers. And we did raise that amount significantly at a time when we did raise our prices by more than 8%. I mean, if you look at it 2 years before, it was 0. So in order to make it a little bit softer for consumers, we decided to spend more on the trade spend part, a little bit less on the marketing spend side. This year, we will increase significantly our marketing spend, both in absolute value and as a percentage of sales. So it's already a factor today. And so we are really committing to that, and I'm not so sure that this will happen. This is important once again for -- to secure growth in the future. I take the occasion as well to say that to reiterate the fact that we will provide more color on our marketing spend as well. So from H1 this year, we will provide the amount of marketing spend that we do both in absolute value and as a percentage of sales.

And focusing on RIG, what is your confidence level now that RIG will improve in the second half of the year outside of just base effects? And how do you feel about the volume mix split going forward?

So I'm very confident about it. And you said it, first of all, it's because of the comps, but it goes beyond the comps. First of all, as you know, we are -- we have been very active over the last couple of quarters with what we call portfolio pruning, where we are really, I would say, cleaning our portfolio with not loss-making businesses because we don't really have any but low-margin businesses. And we discontinued some of the business line. It's very different from what we do in M&A. Because in M&A, we restate the past. So you don't see it on the RIG. You see it on the RIG when we discontinue business line. And in the initial part of this program, we do suffer in RIG, which is what happened in Q3, Q4 last year, a bit in Q1. But this is not just about cutting the tail. This is not about discontinuing businesses. This is about reallocating resources towards high-growth, high-volume, high-value products. And then after a few months, we start having the benefit. And we started to see some signs of it with a better service level already in Q1 2023. So in the second part of 2023, we should have a positive impact of this program. So we will overcome the negative one with the positive side of it with a better service level. And once again, it has already started to happen in Q1. So very positive about that. The other thing is that I just want to be clear as well, we will continue to do pricing but not to the same extent as what we have done. So we have done still a lot of pricing in Q1, for example, which may have an impact on Q2. But we expect to do a little bit less pricing going forward, first of all, because the commodity cycle is evolving as well. It's not the end of inflation, by the way. We still have a lot of pressure in terms of input cost inflation this year but less than last year. So as a consequence of that, going forward in H2, there will be less pricing, which would put less pressure on volume and RIG. And finally, as we just said, we are investing much more in marketing. That will help as well. So the combination of the 3 factors plus the comps, which will be easier, gives me a lot of confidence on the fact that we will be in positive territories for H2 in RIG.

Maybe if I could ask one more question given the topic of today, what's your ability to more aggressively allocate capital towards emerging markets and especially given your comments there about quality and trust and capital allocation against the organic growth within emerging markets?

We always favor organic growth because we are in full control, because we know the markets, and this is what we do in R&D, with R&D and marketing. That being said, we need to complement it from time to time with inorganic growth. And we have done that. As you know, we have been very active in that space with overall good results because there were some bad cases but, overall, net-net, very attractive results. Emerging markets, given what I presented earlier and what Remy presented, it's really extremely attractive for us to go further. And if we can do it through M&A, why not? However, let's be super careful because price -- asset prices are often very much more expensive that even in the developed world -- I would mention one country. We talked about it. India is a country where we are underindexed in terms of presence versus our presence globally. But by the way, we are doing superbly well, double-digit growth for years, a very attractive level of profitability as well and -- which is public information anyway because it's -- we have a listed company there. So we are doing very well. But when you look at multiples and valuations in India, I'm not eliminating options, but we need to be super, super careful in what we do. And this is the example I wanted to mention because this is the country where we are the more underindexed versus our presence globally in the world.

We've now come to the end of the session. Thank you very much, François, and thank you very much, Remy, for joining us on stage.

Thank you, everyone.