The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript August 16, 2023 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Rainey Mancini - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Fabrizio Freda - President, and Chief Executive Officer

Tracey Travis - Executive Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Powers - Deutsche Bank

Dara Mohsenian - Morgan Stanley

Chris Carey - Wells Fargo

Bryan Spillane - Bank of America

Lauren Lieberman - Barclays

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to The Estée Lauder Companies Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and webcast.

For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Ms. Rainey Mancini.

Rainey Mancini

Hello. On today's call are Fabrizio Freda, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tracey Travis, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Since many of our remarks today contain forward-looking statements, let me refer you to our press release and our reports filed with the SEC, where you'll find factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

To facilitate the discussion of our underlying business, the commentary on our financial results and expectations is before restructuring and other charges and adjustments disclosed in our press release. Unless otherwise stated, all organic net sales growth also excludes the non-comparable impacts of acquisitions, divestitures, brand closures, and the impact of foreign currency translation. You can find reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures in our press release and on the Investors section of our website.

As a reminder, references to online sales include sales we make directly to our consumers through brand.com sites and through third-party platforms. It also includes estimated sales of our products through our retailers' websites.

During the Q&A session, we ask that you please limit yourselves to one question, so we can respond to all of you within the time scheduled for this call.

And now I'll turn the call over to Fabrizio.

Fabrizio Freda

Thank you, Rainey, and hello to everyone. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our fiscal year 2023 results and outlook.

Let me begin with the fourth quarter. We delivered an organic sales increase of 4%, achieving a return to growth for the quarter as expected. Momentum continued in the markets of EMEA and Latin America and accelerated in Asia Pacific, where organic sales growth improved from 7% in the third quarter to 36% in the fourth quarter, led by mainland China and Hong Kong SAR.