Is KMB's Powering Care Strategy Building a Competitive Edge Into 2026?

Kimberly-Clark Corporation's KMB Powering Care strategy is steadily reshaping the company’s competitive position, reinforcing its ambition to become an industry-leading personal care powerhouse. Despite ongoing pressures across the consumer staples landscape, management highlighted that Powering Care remains the central driver of execution, enabling KMB to deliver more consistent results while strengthening its brands and market presence.

KMB continues its shift toward volume-plus-mix-led growth, achieving its seventh consecutive quarter of gains in third-quarter fiscal 2025. Management noted that this trend, which began last year, is expected to continue into the fourth quarter. By targeting consumers across the good, better and best spectrum, KMB aims to grow volumes while maintaining pricing discipline despite rising promotional intensity.

Innovation remains central to the strategy’s durability. Management expressed confidence that upcoming innovation cycles will be progressively stronger, with future product launches expected to outperform prior generations. The company is intentionally cascading performance-led innovation across price tiers, supporting premiumization while protecting its value offerings, a dynamic that should sustain positive mix over multiple years.

Powering Care also carries longer-term profitability implications. KMB reaffirmed its ambition to achieve a gross margin of at least 40% and an operating margin of 18-20% before the end of the decade. Continued productivity gains, reinvestment behind brands and a rewired organizational model are expected to support more consistent margin expansion and improved earnings quality over time.

Overall, as KMB enters 2026, Powering Care appears positioned as a durable competitive framework. With visibility into sustained growth momentum, an increasingly robust innovation pipeline and structurally improving margins, the strategy strengthens KMB’s ability to deliver resilient performance and long-term value creation in the years ahead.

Kimberly-Clark’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

KMB, which competes with Procter & Gamble PG and Albertsons Companies ACI, has seen its shares decline 22.6% in the past six months compared with the industry’s fall of 12.7%. Also, shares of Procter & Gamble and Albertsons Companies have lost 10.3% and 21.3%, respectively, in the aforementioned period.

Kimberly-Clark’s forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 14.61 reflects a lower valuation than the industry’s average of 18.06. KMB has a Value Score of D. KMB is trading at a discount to Procter & Gamble (with a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 20.09) and at a premium to Albertsons Companies (7.84).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for KMB’s 2025 earnings implies a year-over-year decline of 16.4%, while the same for 2026 indicates growth of 13.2%. Earnings estimates for 2025 have been southbound by 7 cents per share, while the same for 2026 have been southbound by 1 cent in the past 30 days.

Kimberly-Clark currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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