London, April 25, 2026, 17:06 BST
- A China condom price scare has put fresh attention on Reckitt’s Durex business after a soft first quarter.
- Reckitt missed core sales growth expectations and warned first-half margins would be lower.
- Higher oil costs, Russia sanctions and weak cold-and-flu demand are testing its 2026 targets.
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc faces a fresh test in China after a warning of higher condom prices went viral, stirring talk of stockpiling in one of the consumer goods group’s key growth markets just days after it reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales.
The issue matters now because China and India helped carry Reckitt’s emerging markets performance in the first quarter, while Durex sales in China were already flat after condoms and contraceptive pills became subject to a 13% value-added tax, a sales tax applied through the supply chain. Karex Bhd, the world’s top condom maker and a supplier to brands including Durex and Trojan, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% if Iran-war supply disruption drags on; a related hashtag drew more than 60 million views on Weibo by Thursday, Reuters reported.
Reckitt, the maker of Dettol, Lysol, Durex and Finish, posted 1.3% like-for-like net revenue growth in its core business for the three months to March, below the 2.9% forecast in a company-compiled analyst poll. Like-for-like revenue strips out currency and portfolio effects to show underlying sales trends.
Its London shares were not trading at the dateline, with the market shut for the weekend after regular London Stock Exchange hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday. The stock fell as much as 7% after Wednesday’s update, touching its lowest level since late 2024.
Chief Executive Kris Licht said core growth was hit by “very low seasonal incidence,” weak European categories and geopolitical disruption, but added that Reckitt maintained its 2026 like-for-like revenue guidance. The company said growth would rely on a reset in cold-and-flu demand, launches including Mucinex 12hr Cold and Fever, better European trading and continued growth in China, India and non-seasonal North America. Reckitt
Investors were less settled. Harsharan Mann, consumer sector hub lead at Aviva Investors, a Reckitt shareholder, said the results showed “broad-based muted growth,” while JPMorgan analyst Celine Pannuti said Reckitt’s second-quarter emerging market outlook was disappointing and cast doubt on whether the company can hit its annual targets. Reuters
The strain is not only about condoms. Reckitt said first-half margins would be about 200 basis points lower than a year earlier; a basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. It cited high oil prices, Russia sanctions, a weak cold-and-flu season in the United States and Europe, and disruption tied to the Iran war.
The risk is that the pressure lasts longer than Reckitt expects. The company’s full-year forecast assumes no further hit to emerging markets from the Iran war beyond the first half, and it said significantly elevated commodity prices could hurt consumer demand by squeezing household budgets.
Peers are sending the same signal. Procter & Gamble warned on Friday of a roughly $1 billion post-tax profit hit in fiscal 2027 from higher oil prices, while Nestlé and Beiersdorf have also flagged higher costs or possible price increases. P&G finance chief Andre Schulten called the commodity hit “nothing to sneeze at.” Reuters
Reckitt is trying to make the business simpler while those pressures build. It has been refocusing on core brands such as Durex, Lysol and Mucinex after the $4.8 billion sale of its Essential Home business, and it is still weighing options for Mead Johnson, the baby-formula unit hit by litigation and reported buyer interest from Danone.
Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote that Reckitt’s full-year guidance still looked achievable, but only if new products “hit the ground running.” He added that the Mead Johnson exit remains a major hurdle, keeping execution risk high even after the recent share pullback. Hl
