Church & Dwight Co. (NYSE: CHD) reported Q1 EPS of $0.73, in-line with the analyst estimate of $0.73. Revenue for the quarter came in at $782 million versus the consensus estimate of $783.95 million.

James R. Craigie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We believe that innovation is the key to delivering strong sales and earnings growth despite continued weak U.S. consumer demand and fierce competition. As promised, we launched innovative new products in every one of our major categories and three new categories in the first quarter. Retail acceptance has been strong resulting in incremental distribution. Marketing support largely began late in the first quarter, so we expect stronger consumption and sales in the second quarter.”

Outlook for 2014

With regards to the outlook for the full year, Mr. Craigie said, “Despite continued weak U.S. consumer demand and fierce competition, we believe that we are positioned to deliver strong sales and earnings growth with our balanced portfolio of value and premium products, the launch of innovative new products across every one of our major categories and three new categories, aggressive productivity programs and tight management of overhead costs.

Mr. Craigie continued, “We are also pleased with the continued growth of our most recent acquisition, the gummy vitamin business. We delivered double digit consumption growth in the quarter and are maintaining our double digit sales growth outlook for the full year, driven by significant distribution gains and adults switching from hard pills to our delicious tasting gummy vitamins. While the gummy segment of the adult vitamins, minerals, and supplements (VMS) category has doubled from 3 to 6% since 2012, this still leaves an opportunity to convert 94% of the $6.8 billion category for adult VMS. In addition to continuing to drive increased retail distribution of the leading brands of kids and adult gummy vitamins, we are launching new products and increasing marketing spending in 2014 by 30% to continue to convert adults to our delicious gummy vitamins.”

With regard to the Company’s 2014 outlook, Mr. Craigie said, “Now that we have one quarter of results, we are tightening our 2014 EPS range from 6 to 10% growth to 7 to 9% growth to reflect our latest thinking on the net impact of the strong distribution achieved by our new products and the increased competitive environment. We expect organic sales growth to be at the low end of our 3 to 4% range, which reflects continued weakness of the laundry category where we are experiencing unprecedented price competition. Gross margin is now expected to be approximately 50 to 75 bps lower than last year due to higher trade promotions to address the price competition and to support the launch of our new products. We continue to expect operating margin expansion from rigorous control of SG&A. We expect the second half of the year to drive our earnings growth, as the first half includes a significant increase in slotting, couponing, trade promotions, and incremental marketing support for our new product launches. This earnings outlook does not include the benefit from any potential acquisitions, which we continue to pursue.”

Mr. Craigie concluded, “With regard to the second quarter, we expect organic sales growth of approximately 3%, gross margin contraction of 100 bps behind the remaining slotting investments and a more price competitive laundry category, and earnings per share of approximately $0.61.”

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