What CEOs are saying: ‘Business roared back’

Starbucks Corp Chief Executive Kevin Johnson

Mr. Johnson said, “Supply chain-driven inflation costs were unexpectedly increased by Omicron and accelerated sharply in December. For the remainder of the year, we expect these costs to increase relative to our previous estimate. Like most economists, we expect supply-chain disruptions to continue for the foreseeable future. We’ve already taken pricing action this fiscal year… and we have excess through the balance of this year. Pricing is a plan of action.” (February 1)

United Parcel Service Inc. Chief Executive Carol Tomei

“In terms of current trends, in the first week of January, I’m like, where are the customers? Everyone seemed at home because of Omicron, but business is booming again. So we feel really good about the guidance we’ve just given.” (Feb 1)

Kevin Jacobsen, Chief Financial Officer of The Clorox Company

“If I look at our history, this is the fourth inflationary cycle we have gone through in the last 10 years. If you look at the last three times that we’ve done this, we’ve been able to fully price and drive our cost-savings program to offset cost inflation, rebuild margins. Historically it has taken us about 12 to 18 months to do this. I will tell you, though, in this case—because of the extreme level of inflation we’re dealing with—I expect it to take longer.” (February 3)

Sony Group Corp Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki

“We are unable to fully meet the market demand across multiple categories due to severe limitations on the supply of components. We expect this situation to continue to impact us in the fourth quarter ended March 31.” (February 2)

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Chief Executive Lisa Su

“We’ve been in a mode of ‘demand is bigger than supply’, although we’ve made a lot of progress through 2021. And I expect to make further progress; in fact the incremental capacity will be online by 2022, especially the second In the half yearly… but we’re definitely working on getting more supply through the year, and I think you should see that loosen up a little bit.” (February 1)

Mary Barras, Chief Executive of General Motors Company

“What we are sharing is what we see with the work we have done with all semiconductor manufacturers and our plans for this year,” Ms Barra said. We are “definitely seeing an improvement in the first quarter over the fourth quarter.” We saw the fourth quarter better than the third quarter. And we really see, the plans we have in place right now, by the time we get to the third and fourth quarters, we’re really going to start to see semiconductor barriers coming down. (February 1)

Ford Motor Company Chief Executive Jim Farley

“Perhaps the greatest gift to the pain we are going through in semiconductors is that we have learned a lesson from a lot of pain that we cannot manage the supply chain for these key components as we have. In fact , you could argue that the supply chain may be one of the biggest advantages a particular company may or may not have in the transition to these digital electric vehicles.” (February 3)

Amazon.com Inc. Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky

“There are specific things that I think we all see in the supply chain where we are waiting for products. But as far as Amazon is concerned, we did a lot to counter the supply-chain issues. What we saw in Q4 or anticipated in Q4. We bought a lot of products ahead. We worked with vendors to quickly secure inventory in some of the previously paid-for cases, which had a working capital impact.” (February 3)

Honeywell International Inc. Chief Financial Officer Greg Lewis

“We expect supply-chain impacts to be as challenging in the first half of the year as they were in the third and fourth quarters, and they will begin to subside as the aero supply base ramps up and electronic components capacity goes online. Q3. Inflation will continue to be a significant headwind. However, tighter pricing actions will offset the impact of margins throughout the year.” (February 3)

Michelle Bucky, chief executive of the Hershey Company

“We have a lot of actions in place to make continuous improvements relative to our own supply… We think we will continue to improve. But under no circumstances will we really be completely out of the woods. On us all year long The pressure will continue. Our goal is just to keep improving. (Feb 3)

Waste Management Inc. Chief Executive James Fish Jr.

“I will tell you that the inflation that we started seeing in the third quarter, I think the whole world has caught on. But no one expected coming into this year that we would have 40 years of high inflation So, Q3 was playing catch up a bit. Q4, we really started to catch up, but there’s a lag in terms of how much pricing we can get to cover inflation. And honestly, we Maybe — we’ll be happy to get to the point where we cover that cost.” (February 2)

Brinker International Inc. Chief Financial Officer Joe Taylor

“There is a belief that we will have a downward cycle at some point. There is no time frame calling on that, but we still believe that commodities are cyclical. And whether it is the back half of this calendar year or the next Coming into the fiscal year, there’s probably some relief on the absolutes of those people. The labor side of the equation is more structural.” (February 2)

ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Ryan Lance

“We see we’re seeing a little bit more inflation as a result of stronger commodity prices, and I would say that’s mainly in the Permian Basin … all over the world, however, we see a lot less inflation.” (Feb. 3)

Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg

“We’ve also heard from advertisers about other macro trends that contributed to headwinds in Q4, including global supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages and inflationary pressures.” (February 2)

Colgate-Palmolive Company Chief Executive Noel Wallace

“Obviously, we saw a significant uptick in raw material prices after the first quarter in 2021. This continued to increase as we went through the year. And certainly, back to where we thought we were in the third quarter. On a base we saw significant growth in the fourth quarter … so it’s all built now into how we’re thinking about 2022. And we expect raw materials, quite frankly, to peak in the first quarter. ” (January 28)

Alphabet Inc. Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porata

“Overall, as I indicated, we saw strength during that year. The broad-based advertiser was the strength. There was strong consumer online activity, and they were really the primary driver.” (Feb 1)

Ralph Lauren Corp Chief Operating Officer Jane Nielsen

“This holiday in particular, which impacted our outward performance, was actually our consumers, who tended to shop early and shop at full price. So we got ahead of the curve on the holiday, and we pushed important promotional levers. Maintained that momentum through the holiday without dragging on. We were promoting a lot less this year than we were last year.” (February 3)

John Idol, Chief Executive of Capri Holdings Ltd.

“Our full-price sales have increased dramatically … the health of the consumer entering our brand, both new and existing, is actually quite strong.” (February 2)

Jim Hagedorn, chief executive of Scotts Miracle-Gro Company

“Our most recent consumer-sentiment data … tells us that consumers view gardening as important to their lifestyles. It also tells us that they plan to keep their spending levels in line with last year’s , an important fact considering the total amount of inflation in the economy.” (February 1)

PulteGroup Inc. Chief Financial Officer Bob O’Shaughnessy

“Obviously, inflation is real. And perhaps chief among them, interestingly, is wood, which was the downside. We’re getting a little bit of a tailwind in the first half of the year, but pricing went up right And so it has impacted the back half of the year. But let me tell you… we are forecasting a 6% to 8% increase in the input cost for the house.” (February 1)

Illinois Tool Works Inc. Chief Financial Officer Michael Larsen

“We haven’t really seen anything that would suggest that inflationary pressures are easing. But to be honest with you, it’s a really uncertain environment here … so it’s really hard to predict when we’ll be here in the year.” What will you end up for?” (February 3)

Match Group Inc. Chief Executive Shar Dubey

“There is still a hesitation among new users who have never tried dating apps before falling into the category. … So, unlike categories like online groceries, for example, where [the] As the pandemic pushed new users, for us, non-users broke into the category, even at a normal cadence, that’s still to come. And we feel optimistic that if Omicron does indeed cause a change from a pandemic to an endemic, and if things really do become more normal in the spring and summer, we are well positioned to be able to capitalize on it. are.” (Feb. 2)

Quotes were obtained from transcripts provided by FactSet.