Procter & Gamble Tops Estimates, Raises Outlook

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Household products giant Procter & Gamble reported quarterly earnings and revenue on Thursday that beat analysts' expectations.

The company, which makes household staples such as Bounty paper towels and Tide detergent, reported fiscal second-quarter earnings excluding items of $1.22 per share, up from $1.10 a share a year ago.

Revenue rose to $22.18 billion from $22.14 billion a year ago.

Shares of P&G traded higher in pre-market trading following the announcement. (Click here to get the latest quotes for Procter & Gamble.)

Analysts had expected P&G to report earnings excluding items of $1.11 a share on $21.91 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

"The consumer is definitely hanging in there. We haven't seen an inflection point in the market growth rates yet, but we also haven't seen any deterioration. So it's reasonably good," Procter & Gamble CFO Jon Moeller told CNBC.

He added: "There are other tailwinds related to the broader macro environment. Much more benign commodity environment than we saw in the last two years. Certainly a better environment from a foreign-exchange standpoint."

Recently, the company has been under pressure from investors, most notably activist investor William Ackman, to streamline its operations. A series of missteps has caused P&G to stumble behind its competitors.

Ackman has said many of the company's problems were due to top management but said in the fall he understood the board wanted to give Chief Executive Bob McDonald more time to repair years of damage.

Even before Ackman took a stake, P&G was going through a $10 billion restructuring and other changes.

P&G has been working for months to improve its structure and cut costs. It has admitted that recent products were not as strong as past successes, such as Swiffer and Crest Whitestrips.

Competitors Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive are trimming their ranks to contend with weak economies in the U.S. and Western Europe.

(Read More: Kimberly-Clark Slashes Costs, Ups Marketing in Profit Beat)

P&G said it expects fiscal 2013 core earnings of $3.97 to $4.07 per share, up from an earlier forecast of $3.80 to $4. The fiscal year ends in June.

It expects sales that strip out acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange fluctuations to rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year, versus a prior forecast of 2 percent to 4 percent growth.

P&G also said it now plans to repurchase $5 billion to $6 billion in stock after calling for $4 billion to $6 billion in buybacks.

—Reuters contributed to this article.