Colgate Earnings: Base Business EPS Rises 7% to $0.97 and Colgate Lifts Its Full Year Forecast

By Stock Titan Editorial Team Published October 30, 2026, 07:05 AM EDT · Updated October 30, 2026, 07:35 AM EDT

What does Colgate's 2026 forecast leave for the fourth quarter?

Colgate now expects Base Business earnings per share to grow 5% to 7% in 2026, up from mid single digit growth in its earlier guidance, the forecast it gives investors. It also narrowed its net sales range, according to its third quarter results release.

The fourth quarter that range leaves would be a step down from the first nine months, when Base Business earnings per share rose 7% to $2.94. At the middle of the range the fourth quarter would grow about 2%, and at the low end it would shrink.

Colgate says the higher forecast rests on "strength in our year-to-date results" and on its pricing and cost programs, in its prepared management remarks.

Sales tell a similar story, with less precision, because Colgate's sales range is rounded to whole percentages. It leaves fourth quarter net sales of about $5.14 billion to $5.35 billion, against $5.23 billion a year earlier, according to its full year 2025 results.

Currency is one unknown. It added 3.1% to fourth quarter sales a year ago. Colgate's materials do not say what it will add this time, beyond a low single digit lift for the whole year.

Colgate expects organic sales growth, which leaves out currency, to be broadly in line with the first nine months, when it was 3.0%. Its earlier forecast was 1% to 4%. In our reading, that sits more easily with the upper half of the net sales range than with its low end.

Gross profit margin is now expected to rise on both a reported and a Base Business basis, where Colgate earlier expected it to be roughly flat.

Reported earnings per share are a different story. They fell to $2.61 in the first nine months of 2026 from $2.67, yet Colgate still expects double digit growth for the year. The base is low: a $794 million after tax charge on its skin health business, mainly the Filorga brand, left 2025 reported earnings per share at $2.63.

Colgate third quarter 2026 earnings: reported EPS up 3%, Base Business up 7%

Reported earnings per share were $0.94, up from $0.91, according to Colgate's results release. Base Business earnings per share were $0.97.

Base Business is Colgate's own adjusted measure, which leaves out items it treats as outside its normal business. This quarter, that meant the charges of its Strategic Growth and Productivity Program, a three year plan to cut costs and reorganize, which reduced operating profit by $29 million.

Net sales were $5,369 million, up from $5,131 million. Organic sales grew 3.6%, a measure that leaves out currency moves, acquisitions and the sale or closing of businesses. Lower sales of private label pet food, made for store chains under their own labels, took 0.2% off that growth as Colgate leaves the business.

Net income attributable to Colgate was $751 million, against $735 million a year earlier.

Noel Wallace, the chairman and chief executive, said net sales and organic sales rose "in all four categories and in four of five divisions." Those four are oral care, personal care, home care and pet nutrition. Neither the release nor the prepared remarks give a growth rate for each one.

How much of Colgate's sales growth came from prices and volume?

Volume is the amount of goods sold. Colgate's pricing figure also counts coupons and the discounts it gives shoppers and retailers, and currency, which added 1.0 point, is a separate piece.

North America was the exception. Volume fell 3.7% there while prices rose 2.2%, so net sales slipped 1.7%. The division makes up 17% of Colgate's sales.

Colgate blames the United States. Its prepared remarks say consumer behavior there is volatile and sentiment is weak "given increasing fuel prices," and that categories "remain under pressure." The volume drop matched the second quarter's, and the company says its plan to win back growth "will take time."

The materials do not split the drop between weaker demand, retailers holding less stock and lost market share. Colgate does report "early signs of improvement" in its US toothpaste market share in the quarter.

Every other division sold more. Latin America grew fastest, with net sales up 12.5%, about half of it from currency. Hill's Pet Nutrition, the pet food business, relied most on price, which rose 3.9%.

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, prices fell, mainly in the Middle East, while volume rose 3.5%. In developed markets as a whole, volume rose only 0.1%, so nearly all their growth came from price. Emerging markets grew volume 3.7%.

Volume growth has picked up through the year. Over the first nine months it rose 1.2%, against 1.7% in the third quarter alone. Without the private label pet food exit, Colgate puts the quarter's volume growth at 1.9%.

Procter & Gamble's company-wide sales drivers for the same July to September months show price adding 0.4% and volume 2.4%, according to P&G's results release. P&G defines its price effect differently and reports product mix separately, so these are each company's own measures, not a comparison of toothpaste prices. StockTitan covered why P&G held its prices nearly flat.

Colgate gross margin rose, and advertising took much of the gain

The margin rose 80 basis points from 59.4%, a basis point being a hundredth of a percentage point. On the Base Business measure it rose 90 basis points to 60.3%.

Costlier materials nearly wiped out the gain from savings. In the prepared remarks, higher raw material costs cut the Base Business margin by 300 basis points, while the cost savings programs Colgate calls funding the growth added 290. Higher prices added 80, and a richer product mix, meaning more sales of pricier goods, added 20.

Colgate traces those costs partly to the conflict in the Middle East, which raised oil prices, and to tariffs. It says it is "broadly locked in" on costs for the rest of the year.

Advertising cost $775 million, against $674 million a year earlier, and rose to 14.4% of sales, according to Colgate's earnings presentation. Wallace called it "another double-digit increase in advertising this quarter."

Reported operating profit was $1,088 million. On the Base Business measure, operating profit rose 5% to $1,117 million.

North America's operating profit fell 11% to $177 million. Latin America's rose 17% to $392 million, the largest of any division.

Colgate dividend, buybacks and debt: $2.2 billion returned

Dividends paid came to $1,308 million and share buybacks to $927 million over those nine months, according to the release's cash flow statement. The next quarterly dividend, declared in September, is $0.53 a share, payable on November 13, 2026.

The buybacks shrink the number of shares that profit is divided among. Diluted shares averaged 799.7 million in the third quarter, a count that also includes stock options and similar awards, against 810.2 million a year earlier. So earnings per share grew a little faster than profit did.

Total debt was $7,716 million at the end of September, down from $7,988 million at the end of 2025. Cash was $1,527 million. StockTitan's dividend yield calculator turns a dividend like this one into a yield for any share price, and the CL stock page carries the company's filings and news.

The payouts came from cash the business produced. Free cash flow before dividends was $2,513 million over the nine months, the cash from operations less capital spending, more than the $2.2 billion returned to shareholders.

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