{"id":43131,"date":"2026-05-21T02:47:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43131\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T02:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:47:18","slug":"reckitt-cautions-over-impact-of-iran-war-on-costs-and-consumer-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43131\/","title":{"rendered":"Reckitt cautions over impact of Iran war on costs and consumer demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Household Household goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has revealed falling third-quarter revenues after a \u00a3100m hit to Mead Johnson baby formula powder sales following tornado damage to a key warehouse in the US (Alamy\/PA) <\/p>\n

Household goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has warned over a possible cost hit of up to \u00a3150 million if oil prices stay high due to the Iran<\/a> war and said consumer demand would also be impacted.<\/p>\n

The Dettol-to-Durex<\/a> firm said if oil prices remain at 110 US dollars a barrel (\u00a381.33) throughout 2026, it could leave the group nursing around \u00a3130 million to \u00a3150 million in higher costs.<\/p>\n

It said this would be a \u201cmanageable level\u201d to offset through actions including supply chain flexibility and pricing.<\/p>\n

The group added: \u201cWhile challenging to forecast, if commodity prices remain at significantly elevated levels throughout the year we would anticipate an impact on consumer demand as a result of pressure on household budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares<\/a> in the FTSE 100 firm dropped by more than 5% in early trading on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Reckitt reported revenues rising by 0.6% on a like-for-like basis in its first quarter, as higher prices offset a 2% drop in sales by volume.<\/p>\n

Its core business, excluding the Mead Johnson Nutrition arm, saw growth slow sharply to 1.3% from 5.9% in the previous three months as it was impacted by a weak cold and flu season globally, challenging trading in Europe<\/a> and disruption from the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n

Sales in Europe dropped 4.2% in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

But Reckitt said it was on track with guidance for like-for-like net sales to rise by 4% to 5% over the full year.<\/p>\n

The group warned that profit margins were expected to drop in the first six months, partly due to the cost impact of the Iran war, though this will be counteracted by stronger profitability in the second half.<\/p>\n

Chief executive Kris Licht said: \u201cWe maintain our like-for-like net revenue guidance for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be driven by sequential growth from our market-leading Powerbrands, as the season resets and we continue to launch superior innovations including Mucinex 12-hour Cold and Fever, improved performance in Europe and continued strong growth across China, India and non-seasonal North America.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Household goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has revealed falling third-quarter revenues after a \u00a3100m hit to Mead Johnson baby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21355],"tags":[7077,21416,21850,21849,21851,24,1449,21852,21376],"class_list":["post-43131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reckitt-benckiser","tag-oil-prices","tag-commodity-prices","tag-consumer-demand","tag-household-goods","tag-impact","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-manageable-level","tag-reckitt-benckiser"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116610285226901891","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}