LONDON, April 23, 2026, 20:02 BST
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc missed first-quarter sales expectations and warned that first-half margins will run about 200 basis points, or 2 percentage points, below a year earlier as higher oil costs, a weak cold-and-flu season and geopolitical disruption hit growth. The Dettol and Durex maker’s shares fell 4.6% on Wednesday after dropping as much as 7% in the session.
The warning lands at a delicate moment for Reckitt. After selling its Essential Home arm for $4.8 billion in December, the company is trying to show its tighter focus on hygiene and health brands can still deliver 4%-5% core sales growth, even as it weighs options for its litigation-hit Mead Johnson infant formula business.
It also fits a wider pattern: Reuters reported on Thursday that Procter & Gamble is bracing for another quarter of gross-margin pressure from freight and packaging costs tied to the Iran war, while Danone said this week that the conflict has disrupted baby-formula shipments through the Middle East.
Reckitt said core like-for-like revenue, a measure that strips out currency swings, acquisitions and disposals, rose 1.3% in the March quarter, below the 2.9% analysts expected in a company-compiled poll. Group like-for-like revenue rose 0.6%, with emerging markets up 7.6% but Europe down 4.2% and North America off 0.9%; reported group revenue fell 11.8% to 3.247 billion pounds, reflecting foreign-exchange headwinds and the loss of Essential Home sales.
Chief Executive Kris Licht said the quarter was hit by “very low seasonal incidence” and Europe weakness, but left 2026 guidance unchanged. Excluding seasonal OTC, or over-the-counter medicines, Core Reckitt grew 3.1%, and Licht said launches such as Mucinex 12hr Cold and Fever should help drive sequential improvement. Reckitt
The split across categories was stark: seasonal OTC sales fell 10.8% as retailers cut inventories and fewer consumers bought cold and flu remedies, while germ protection rose 9.5%, helped by double-digit growth from Lysol and Dettol.
China and Russia both dragged on the quarter. Reckitt said Durex sales in China were flat after a new 13% value-added tax, or sales tax, on condoms and contraceptive pills, while tighter EU sanctions hit its Russia household-care and germ-protection business.
Reckitt told Reuters its local Russian team is developing products and registering new intellectual property to replace most of its hygiene portfolio there, and said the process to transfer ownership of the Russian business is still ongoing. “The results showed broad-based muted growth,” Harsharan Mann at Aviva Investors, a Reckitt shareholder, told Reuters. Reuters
Analysts sounded no calmer. JPMorgan’s Celine Pannuti wrote that management’s view that second-quarter emerging-market growth will be broadly in line with the first quarter was disappointing, while Bernstein’s Callum Elliot said the Russia effect would revive questions about whether Reckitt can hit its full-year sales goals.
Reckitt kept its forecast for 4%-5% like-for-like growth in its core business this year and said full-year adjusted operating margin should be delivered mostly in the second half. But it also modeled a 130 million- to 150 million-pound hit to 2026 input costs if oil stays at $110 a barrel, and said first-half margin will be about 200 basis points below the 24.6% it posted a year earlier.
The risk is that the squeeze lasts longer than management assumes. If Middle East disruption runs past the first half, petrochemical and freight costs stay high and supplier price hikes spread, Reckitt could face another setback in China just as Durex is already dealing with the new tax and tighter online content restrictions; Karex, a supplier to Durex, said this week it may raise condom prices by 20%-30% if the disruptions drag on.
Reckitt said it has not yet seen shortages in raw materials for condoms and is not assuming further war-related damage beyond the first half. The company said its 2026 plan depends on a reset in cold-and-flu demand, better Europe execution and stronger launches, while Mead Johnson remains under review.
