The business sector is globally active in the Laundry and Home Care branded consumer goods businesses. The Laundry business includes not only heavy-duty and specialty detergents but also fabric softeners, laundry performance enhancers and laundry care products. The portfolio of our Home Care business encompasses hand-dishwashing and machine-dishwashing products, cleaners for bath and WC applications, and household, glass and specialty cleaners. We also have a market presence in selected regions with air fresheners and insecticides for household applications.

Our aim is to continue generating profitable growth through the organic expansion of our continuing operations. We therefore intend to pursue both sustainable market share gains and further margin improvements. Based on our leading positions in the profitable mature markets of Western Europe and North America, we plan to further expand the share of sales of our emerging markets, particularly Eastern Europe, Africa/Middle East and Latin America. We intend to leverage the dynamics of these emerging markets in order to accelerate the growth of our portfolio. We also endeavor to further increase our market share in these regions and raise profitability to the higher level of the mature markets.

Strong brands and innovations offering consumers added value provide the basis for our strategy of profitable growth. Last year showed once again that the launch of successful products can make a positive contribution, particularly under challenging economic and market conditions. It therefore remains our objective to maintain an innovation rate¹⁾ of at least 40 percent. In 2011, we were able to increase it to 41 percent. Through central and even more efficient management of our innovation process and with deepened insights into the purchasing habits of consumers, we are able to quickly identify and respond to consumer trends and effectively convert these into new products. By prioritizing product categories and centrally steering our global brand portfolio, we are able to direct our investments toward those segments that offer growth and profitability, enabling us to generate disproportionately strong growth with our most important brands and market segments. In 2011, we generated 81 percent of our sales with our top ten brand clusters²⁾.

¹⁾ Percentage share of sales generated with new products launched onto the market within the last three years.
²⁾ A brand cluster comprises several individual local brands which, in terms of their positioning, are comparable to a large international brand. By adopting this approach, we are able to generate high synergies in our marketing mix.