Henkel today published its preliminary figures for the first half of 2024. Sales amounted to 10,813 million euros. This corresponds to good organic sales growth of 2.9 percent. In particular, the adjusted return on sales and adjusted earnings per share exceeded market expectations: The adjusted return on sales (adjusted EBIT margin) rose to 14.9 percent (previous year: 11.5 percent). Adjusted earnings per preferred share amounted to 2.78 euros in the first half of 2024. At constant exchange rates, this represents an increase of 32.9 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. Due to the very strong development so far and factoring in the expected business development in the remainder of the year Henkel has raised its outlook for the earnings development in 2024. This is mainly due to higher profit expectations in the Consumer Brands business unit, while at the same time increasing investments in marketing to support innovations. The outlook still considers the expectation of higher prices for direct materials in the second half of the year.