You don't often hear big earnings news on a Friday, but you will tomorrow. One of the world's largest consumer products companies is gearing up to release its fiscal Q2 2006 earnings numbers. Perhaps you've heard of it: Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG).

Wall Street Wisdom:

  • General consensus. Nineteen analysts follow Procter & Gamble and, as you might expect, most of them like the company. The stock rates 10 "buys" and nine "sells."
  • Revenues. It's not often that you see a company the size of P&G grow its sales by 26%. When it does happen (and analysts expect to see it happen tomorrow), it's generally because the company made a big acquisition (as happened last year, when P&G added a new "G").
  • Earnings. Don't expect all those sales to immediately fall to the bottom line, however. Buying a company the size of Gillette comes with some costs. In P&G's case, analysts believe that earnings actually declined in fiscal Q2, to $0.69 per share. That, however, is at the top of the range of the company's most recent guidance.

Margin watch:
For what it's worth, the margins table below describes P&G's recent performance as a standalone company. The addition of Gillette to the mix is just beginning to make itself felt, so we'll probably need a few more quarters to see just how well this is going (although the company's last earnings update makes it clear that it's pretty pleased with progress so far.)

Margins%

6/04

9/04

12/04

3/05

6/05

9/05

Gross

51.2

51.2

51.3

51.3

51.0

51.0

Op.

19.1

18.8

19.0

19.3

19.3

19.4

Net

12.6

12.6

12.7

12.8

12.8

12.7
All data courtesy of Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data reflects trailing-12-months performance for the quarters ending in the named months.

Foolish lookout:
That update also outlined which areas of its business P&G is depending on to power its further, post-merger revenue growth: the Household Care and Beauty businesses from the P&G home team, and the Blades & Razors and Duracell & Braun divisions from Gillette. If P&G continues to highlight those businesses as its star players, I think Fools should give P&G's performance a glance as well.

Competitors:
P&G's archrivals remain, as always, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB). By acquiring Gillette, P&G added Spectrum (NYSE:SPC) and Matsushita (NYSE:MC) as battery rivals, and Energizer (NYSE:ENR) as a competitor in both batteries and razors.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above.