億滋國際 (MDLZ) 2018 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Mondelez International Fourth Quarter 2018 Year-End Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is scheduled to last about 1 hour, including remarks by Mondelez management and the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Shep Dunlap, Vice President, Investor Relations from Mondelez. Please go ahead, sir.

大家好，歡迎參加億滋國際2018年第四季及年終財報電話會議。今天的電話會議預計持續約 1 小時，包括億滋國際管理層的演講和問答環節。（操作員指示）現在，我很高興將發言權交給億滋國際投資者關係副總裁謝普·鄧拉普先生。請繼續，先生。

Thank you. Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. With me today are Dirk Van de Put, our Chairman and CEO; and Luca Zaramella, our CFO.

謝謝。下午好，感謝各位的參與。今天陪同我的是我們的董事長兼執行長 Dirk Van de Put，以及我們的財務長 Luca Zaramella。

Earlier today, we sent out our press release and presentation slides which are available on our website, mondelezinternational.com/investors.

今天早些時候，我們發布了新聞稿和演示文稿，這些內容可在我們的網站 mondelezinternational.com/investors 上找到。

During this call, we'll make forward-looking statements about the company's performance. These statements are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in our 10-K and 10-Q filings for more details on our forward-looking statements.

在本次電話會議中，我們將對公司的績效做出前瞻性陳述。這些說法是基於我們今天看待事物的方式。由於風險和不確定因素，實際結果可能與預期有重大差異。有關我們前瞻性聲明的更多詳情，請參閱我們 10-K 和 10-Q 文件中包含的警示性聲明和風險因素。

Some of today's prepared remarks include non-GAAP financial measures. Today, we will be referencing our non-GAAP financial measures unless otherwise noted. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and at the back of the slide presentation. In today's call, Dirk will give you an overview of our results as well as progress against our strategic priorities. Then Luca will take you through the financials and our 2019 outlook. We will close with Q&A.

今天準備的發言稿中部分內容涉及非GAAP財務指標。除非另有說明，今天我們將使用非GAAP財務指標。您可以在我們的獲利報告中以及投影片簡報的背面找到 GAAP 與非 GAAP 的調整表。在今天的電話會議中，Dirk 將向大家概述我們的業績以及我們在策略重點方面取得的進展。然後盧卡將帶您了解財務狀況和我們 2019 年的展望。最後我們將進行問答環節。

And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Dirk.

接下來，我將把電話交給德克。

Thank you, Shep, and good afternoon. Last September at our Investor Day, I shared with you our long-term strategy to refocus the company on sustainable top line growth, which we saw as a natural evolution from our more cost- and margin-oriented strategy over the last 5 years. This new strategy leverages our unique difference from other food companies, which is our strong global presence, our iconic brands and our leaner supply model. But above all, what really sets us apart in today's difficult food environment is our unique position as a global snacking leader.

謝謝你，謝普，下午好。去年九月，在我們的投資者日上，我向大家分享了我們的長期策略，即重新聚焦公司可持續的營收成長，我們認為這是我們過去 5 年更加註重成本和利潤率的策略的自然演變。這項新策略充分利用了我們與其他食品公司的獨特優勢，即我們強大的全球影響力、標誌性品牌和更精簡的供應鏈模式。但最重要的是，在當今競爭激烈的食品環境中，真正讓我們脫穎而出的是我們作為全球零食領導者的獨特地位。

Because we are in snacking, we're not in general foods, we are also all over the world, not just in North America, and we have global and local brands that have unique place in consumer's mind. As such, we are a truly global company, operating in attractive, large and growing markets. And in those markets, we have a strong manufacturing distribution and marketing network. This means for instance that our scale and strong presence in emerging markets is an asset and a competitive advantage. As an example, in the fourth quarter, our emerging markets grew at 6.5% and around 6% for the full year. More than 40% of this was volume/mix driven, indicating that consumers around the world consume more on-the-go snacks and treats.

因為我們從事的是零食產業，而不是一般食品業；而且我們的業務遍及全球，不僅限於北美；我們擁有全球和本地品牌，這些品牌在消費者心中佔據著獨特的地位。因此，我們是一家真正的全球性公司，在極具吸引力、規模龐大且不斷成長的市場中開展業務。在這些市場，我們擁有強大的生產、分銷和行銷網絡。這意味著，例如，我們在新興市場的規模和強大的影響力是一項資產和競爭優勢。例如，第四季我們的新興市場成長了 6.5%，全年成長約 6%。其中超過 40% 是由銷售/產品組合驅動的，這表明世界各地的消費者都在消費更多方便攜帶的零食和點心。

We connect with consumers in those markets through a portfolio of powerful global brands as well as local items. And in each market, we also strive to be the industry leader in understanding consumers through advanced insights and analytical capabilities. During the last 5 years, we've gone through a significant restructuring and a cost-focused approach which has created a solid foundation for investment. These strengths of our company are amplified through our unique group of people who have an incredible capability to really make a difference when they put their minds to it. Witness to that has been our margin improvement over the last 5 years.

我們透過一系列強大的全球品牌以及本地產品與這些市場的消費者建立聯繫。在每個市場，我們也致力於透過先進的洞察力和分析能力，成為了解消費者的產業領導者。過去 5 年，我們進行了重大重組，並採取了以成本為中心的策略，這為投資奠定了堅實的基礎。我們公司的這些優勢透過我們獨特的人才團隊得到放大，他們擁有令人難以置信的能力，只要他們下定決心，就能真正有所作為。過去5年我們的利潤率提升就是最好的證明。

2018 was my first full year as CEO. I joined in November 2017. And today, I feel good about what we have achieved in that short term. In the first half of 2018, we developed a new strategy that we think will make a difference. In the second half, we started to execute against that strategy and that has translated into good results and momentum going into 2019. So we are pretty excited about our future.

2018年是我擔任CEO的第一個完整年度。我於2017年11月加入。今天，我對我們在短期內的成就感到滿意。2018 年上半年，我們制定了一項我們認為將會帶來改變的新策略。下半年，我們開始執行該策略，這轉化為良好的業績和進入 2019 年的良好勢頭。所以我們對未來感到非常興奮。

This new strategy creates more growth by focusing on 3 pillars. First is a new, more consumer-centric marketing and sales. Second, an obsession with operational excellence to optimize our demand fulfillment, but also to drive efficiency and lower our costs. And third, there is a step change in our corporate culture from short-term cost focus to a purpose-driven, long-term growth focus. The combination of these 3 levels of growth creation will lead to what is an attractive long-term financial algorithm. 3% plus organic net revenue growth, high single-digit adjusted EPS growth, dividend growth that exceeds adjusted EPS growth and over $3 billion of yearly free cash flow.

這項新策略透過聚焦三大支柱來創造更大的成長。首先是全新的、更以消費者為中心的行銷與銷售模式。其次，我們執著於追求卓越運營，以優化需求滿足，同時提高效率並降低成本。第三，我們的企業文化發生了根本性的轉變，從專注於短期成本轉向專注於目標驅動的長期成長。這三個層面的成長創造結合，將產生一個具有吸引力的長期金融演算法。有機淨收入成長超過 3%，調整後每股盈餘成長接近兩位數，股息成長超過調整後每股盈餘成長，以及超過 30 億美元的年度自由現金流。

Now in switching to the highlights of the year, I would characterize 2018 as a strong year for Mondelez. We met or exceeded our financial and strategic commitments. We accelerated our top line growth with a good balance between volume/mix and price, our execution in emerging markets drove 6% growth, our local brands are showing improvements as we balance investment with our global brands. We expanded adjusted gross profit dollars in Q4 by approximately 5% on a constant currency basis. This was due to solid productivity, volume leverage and a good balance of pricing net of costs. We also delivered another year of double-digit adjusted EPS growth, which brings our 5-year average to 18% per year. Our focus on turning profit into cash flow and returning capital to shareholders also paid off. 2018 was a year of strong free cash flow, generating $2.9 billion of cash and returning more than $3 billion to investors. We continued our commitment to our Impact strategy and announced our packaging will be recyclable by 2025. I believe this strong 2018 financial performance is just a first indication of what is the potential of this company.

現在來談談今年的亮點，我認為 2018 年是億滋國際表現強勁的一年。我們達到或超越了我們的財務和策略承諾。我們透過銷售/產品組合和價格之間的良好平衡，加快了營收成長；我們在新興市場的執行力推動了 6% 的成長；隨著我們對全球品牌和本土品牌的投資達到平衡，我們的本土品牌正在取得進步。以固定匯率計算，我們第四季的調整後毛利成長了約 5%。這得益於穩健的生產效率、銷售優勢以及扣除成本後的良好定價平衡。我們還實現了連續第二年兩位數的調整後每股收益成長，使我們五年的平均年增長率達到 18%。我們專注於將利潤轉化為現金流並向股東返還資本，這項策略也獲得了回報。2018 年是自由現金流強勁的一年，產生了 29 億美元的現金，並向投資者返還了超過 30 億美元。我們繼續履行對影響力策略的承諾，並宣佈到 2025 年，我們的包裝將實現可回收。我認為2018年強勁的財務表現只是這家公司潛力的初步體現。

Now maybe a few words on our progress against that new strategy I was talking about before. As 2018 came to a strong close, I am pleased to see that many of the elements of our new approach are being put in place. So let me take you maybe through a few highlights.

現在我想簡單談談我們針對先前提到的新策略所取得的進展。2018 年即將圓滿結束，我很高興看到我們新方法的許多要素正在逐步落實。那麼，讓我帶你回顧其中的一些亮點。

2019 will be the first full year of increased investment in our growth agenda. But as we saw good momentum as Q4 progressed, we made additional investments in A&C and go to market. To give you a few examples, we put incremental A&C behind areas like chocolate in India, which grew double digits; biscuits in China, where we saw mid-single-digit growth; chocolate and biscuits in Russia, which increased double digit for the year; biscuits and chocolates in Germany, with low single-digit overall country growth for the year; or chocolates in the U.K., which posted low single-digit growth; Oreo in the U.S. which posted high single-digit increase for the year; or we invested in our recent Mexico Oreo chocolate launch which has received very positive feedback from our customers.

2019年將是我們加大成長計畫投資的第一個完整年度。但隨著第四季度的推進，我們看到了良好的發展勢頭，因此我們在航空航天和市場拓展方面進行了額外的投資。舉幾個例子來說，我們在印度的巧克力領域投入了增量廣告和廣告，實現了兩位數的增長；在中國的餅乾領域，我們實現了中等個位數的增長；在俄羅斯的巧克力和餅乾領域，全年實現了兩位數的增長；在德國的餅乾和巧克力領域，全年實現了低個位數的增長；在英國的巧克力領域，實現了低個位數的增長；在美國的奧利奧領域，全年實現了高個位數的增長；或者，我們投資了最近在墨西哥推出的奧利奧巧克力，並獲得了顧客的非常積極的反饋。

We have also further invested in our research, development and quality capabilities. In Q4, we opened a new R&D technical center in India to drive innovation in chocolate and beverages. And we also expanded our state-of-the-art facility in Wroclaw, Poland, with further investment in gum and candy research capabilities. The creation of the SnackFutures innovation hub will help us explore future trends and opportunities. We are also pleased with our recent acquisition of the Tate's premium cookies business which delivered another quarter of strong double-digit growth.

我們也加大了對研發和品質能力的投入。第四季度，我們在印度開設了一個新的研發技術中心，以推動巧克力和飲料領域的創新。此外，我們也擴建了位於波蘭弗羅茨瓦夫的先進工廠，進一步投資於口香糖和糖果的研究能力。SnackFutures創新中心的建立將幫助我們探索未來的趨勢和機會。我們也對近期收購 Tate's 高端餅乾業務感到滿意，該業務又實現了一個季度強勁的兩位數成長。

As a second big step in accelerating our consumer-centric growth, we launched our new marketing playbook, which drives shifts in several areas of our commercial approach. While in the past, we focused mostly on our global brands, in our new strategy, we are achieving a better balance between investment in global brands like Oreo, Milka and belVita and local jewels like Fontaneda in Spain or LU in France, Freia, Marabou in the Nordics, Kinh Do in Vietnam. The combination of those 2 is generating stronger growth than focus on global brands alone. All combined, our brands drove overall organic net revenue growth of 2.5% for the quarter.

作為加速以消費者為中心的成長的第二大舉措，我們推出了新的行銷策略，推動了我們商業方法多個領域的轉變。過去，我們主要專注於全球品牌，而現在，我們的新策略旨在更好地平衡對 Oreo、Milka 和 belVita 等全球品牌的投資，以及對西班牙 Fontaneda、法國 LU、北歐 Freia 和 Marabou、越南 Kinh Do 等本土品牌的投資。兩者的結合比單純專注於全球品牌更能產生強勁的成長。綜合來看，我們旗下各品牌推動本季整體有機淨收入成長2.5%。

In our second strategic pillar, which is all about driving operational excellence, we also started to show good progress, particularly as it relates to excellence in our sales channels. To give you some recent examples, we've launched initiatives to drive e-commerce excellence with key partners in China where online sales were up strong double digits and overall growth in China was mid-single digits.

在我們的第二個策略支柱—推動卓越營運方面，我們也開始取得良好進展，尤其是在銷售通路的卓越營運方面。舉幾個最近的例子，我們與中國的主要合作夥伴共同發起了一些旨在推動電子商務卓越發展的舉措，中國的在線銷售額實現了強勁的兩位數增長，而中國整體的增長也達到了中等個位數。

In India, we are making significant enhancements to our sales and route-to-market excellence where we also grew double digits. We are making similar shifts to tap into the significant opportunities in other emerging markets, such as Africa, Southeast Asia, Russia and Mexico, where our investments are accelerating growth.

在印度，我們正在大力提升銷售和市場通路的卓越性，並且實現了兩位數的成長。我們正在做出類似的調整，以抓住其他新興市場（如非洲、東南亞、俄羅斯和墨西哥）的巨大機遇，我們在這些地區的投資正在加速成長。

As you know, in recent quarters, we have put particular focus on our North American supply-chain performance, where we are aiming to significantly improve its operational excellence. Q4 was a good quarter where our gradual improvement continued in the right direction.

如您所知，最近幾個季度，我們特別關注北美供應鏈的績效，目標是顯著提高其營運效率。第四季表現良好，我們的穩步提升勢頭繼續朝著正確的方向發展。

An important enabler of our future growth is our third pillar of building a winning growth culture. At the start of 2019, we implemented a new, more locally-oriented commercial structure with 13 business units within our existing regional framework. This shift reduces our complexity, improves our speed and encourages more entrepreneurial approaches to marketing sales and product development. We are encouraging our colleagues to test, learn and scale, which means we are implementing a faster, more cost effective and locally driven approach to innovation. We are also changing our incentive structure to drive better overall alignment with our key financial metrics of volume and revenue growth, gross profit progression and solid translation into earnings and cash flow. There is also a stronger direct link to local performance versus overall global performance. And another important change here is that we are refocusing the organization on volume and absolute profit dollar growth. We are also making sure that the quality of the financial results is taken into account into our incentives.

建構成功的成長文化是我們未來發展的重要推動因素，也是我們的第三個支柱。2019 年初，我們在現有的區域框架內實施了新的、更注重在地化的商業結構，下設 13 個業務部門。這種轉變降低了我們的複雜性，提高了我們的速度，並鼓勵採用更具創業精神的方式來進行行銷、銷售和產品開發。我們鼓勵同事進行測試、學習和規模化，這意味著我們正在實施一種更快、更具成本效益且以本地為導向的創新方法。我們也正在改變激勵機制，以更好地與銷售和收入成長、毛利成長以及獲利和現金流等關鍵財務指標保持一致。此外，本地業績與整體全球業績之間的連結也更為直接。另一個重要的變化是，我們將組織的重點重新放在銷售量和絕對利潤美元成長上。我們也確保將財務業績的品質納入激勵機制的考量。

To further enhance this new consumer oriented but also performance-based culture, we launched the new purpose of the company, empower people to snack right. We believe this will lead to higher engagement as well as new ideas on how we will fulfill our vision of being the best and biggest snacking company. One of the expressions of our new purpose is to make sure we offer the consumer the right snack made the right way. For example, in this quarter, we added Brazil to the Cocoa Life program, which is our signature sustainability approach in chocolates. And we also announced the commitment to make all our packaging around the world recyclable by 2025.

為了進一步加強這種以消費者為導向但又以績效為導向的新文化，我們推出了公司的新宗旨：賦能人們，讓他們吃得健康。我們相信這將提高員工參與度，並帶來新的想法，以實現我們成為最好、最大的零食公司的願景。我們新宗旨的體現之一是確保為消費者提供以正確方式製作的正確零食。例如，本季我們將巴西納入了可可生活計劃，這是我們在巧克力領域標誌性的永續發展方法。我們也宣布承諾到 2025 年使全球所有包裝均可回收。

So in summary, I find that 2018 was a strong year for us, which has created good momentum in the business as we head into 2019. We are building on this momentum by increasing our investment behind key initiatives. This includes continuing to invest in our brands and portfolio to capture opportunities in broader snacking as well as driving further growth through innovation. We're also focusing our investment in higher growth geographies and under-indexed channels. We will amplify this growth by continuing to work on improving execution across our business. And I'm also very excited by the energy that our new growth focused culture is creating across the organization. Our tangible progress and the proof points I see around the world of how we are accelerating sustainable growth underscore my belief and confidence that we are in the right segment with the right footprint and the right portfolio. Snacking is an attractive and growing global trend, and we are well positioned to continue to lead the industry.

總而言之，我認為 2018 年對我們來說是強勁的一年，這為我們進入 2019 年的業務發展創造了良好的勢頭。我們正乘勢而上，加大對重點項目的投入。這包括繼續投資我們的品牌和產品組合，以抓住更廣泛的零食市場機會，並透過創新推動進一步成長。我們也將投資重點放在成長速度更快的地區和成長不足的管道。我們將繼續致力於提升公司各部門的執行力，從而進一步擴大這一成長動能。同時，我也對我們以成長為導向的新文化在整個組織中創造的活力感到非常興奮。我們在世界各地取得的實際進展以及我們所看到的加速可持續增長的例證，更加堅定了我的信念和信心，即我們身處正確的領域，擁有正確的佈局和正確的產品組合。零食是一種極具吸引力且不斷增長的全球趨勢，我們已做好充分準備，並繼續引領該行業。

Let me now turn to Luca for more detail on our Q4 and full year performance.

現在請盧卡詳細介紹我們第四季和全年的業績。

Thank you, Dirk, and good afternoon. It was a good quarter and a good year as we delivered on all our key financial metrics for both periods, especially as it relates to organic top line growth, earnings growth and free cash flow generation.

謝謝你，德克，下午好。這是一個不錯的季度，也是一年的好業績，因為我們在兩個時期都實現了所有關鍵財務指標，尤其是在有機營收成長、獲利成長和自由現金流產生方面。

We are also pleased with the quality of the delivery throughout the year. We had generated broad-based growth, with a good balance of volume and pricing. Gross profit on a constant currency basis grew more than revenue in both Q4 and the full year. In Q4, we also started accelerating some investments to further support our brands. So we feel good about the momentum we had coming into 2019 as our teams executed well and made progress toward our strategic road map.

我們對全年的配送品質也感到滿意。我們實現了全面成長，銷售和價格都達到了良好的平衡。以固定匯率計算，第四季和全年的毛利成長均超過了營收成長。第四季度，我們也開始加快一些投資，以進一步支持我們的品牌。因此，我們對進入 2019 年的良好勢頭感到滿意，因為我們的團隊執行得很好，並朝著我們的策略路線圖取得了進展。

Net revenue increased 2.4% for the full year and 2.5% for the fourth quarter. Our strong emerging market footprint propelled our growth for the year, delivering an increase of nearly 6% with clear trends in Russia, India, China, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Africa. In fact, Brazil was the only notable emerging market where results were soft. Excluding Argentina, emerging markets grew 4.5%.

全年淨收入成長2.4%，第四季淨收入成長2.5%。我們在新興市場的強大佈局推動了我們今年的成長，實現了近 6% 的成長，在俄羅斯、印度、中國、東南亞、墨西哥和非洲等市場均呈現出明顯的成長趨勢。事實上，巴西是唯一一個業績疲軟的知名新興市場。除阿根廷外，新興市場成長4.5%。

On a regional basis and for the full year, Europe continues to execute well as it delivered net revenue growth of 2.5%. Consistent with recent years, this growth was volume driven and broad-based, with solid increases across biscuits, chocolate and candy. Russia posted double-digit revenue growth, behind share gains in both biscuit and chocolate, while Germany delivered another solid year of growth. Our chocobakery business continues to demonstrate the power of test and learn, innovation and excellent execution, turning in high single-digit growth for the year and approaching $600 million in annual sales. We are pleased with our capabilities in this region and encouraged regarding the opportunity that remain in front of us.

從區域層級來看，歐洲全年業績表現依然良好，淨收入成長了 2.5%。與近年來的情況一致，這種增長是由銷量驅動的，而且基礎廣泛，餅乾、巧克力和糖果的銷量均實現了穩健增長。俄羅斯實現了兩位數的收入成長，這得益於餅乾和巧克力市場份額的提升；而德國則迎來了穩健成長的一年。我們的巧克力烘焙業務繼續展現出測試和學習、創新和出色執行的力量，實現了高個位數的成長，年銷售額接近 6 億美元。我們對我們在該地區的能力感到滿意，並對擺在我們面前的機會感到鼓舞。

AMEA grew 3.5% and is accelerating with strength coming from several key markets. India delivered double-digit growth, powered by great execution, robust market dynamics, share gains and innovation in chocolate and biscuit. China posted its sixth consecutive quarter of growth, increasing mid-single digits behind continued momentum and share gains in biscuits and gum.

AMEA 成長 3.5%，並且由於幾個主要市場的強勁成長而加速。印度實現了兩位數的成長，這得益於出色的執行力、強勁的市場動態、市場份額的提升以及在巧克力和餅乾領域的創新。中國經濟連續第六個季度實現成長，在餅乾和口香糖持續成長動能和市場份額提升的推動下，實現了中等個位數的成長。

South East Asia also turned in robust growth, propelled by demand for biscuits and chocolate, including a strong mooncake season in Q4. We are also pleased with the progress we are making in Africa.

東南亞也實現了強勁成長，這主要得益於對餅乾和巧克力的需求，其中第四季度月餅銷售旺季尤為強勁。我們對在非洲的進展也感到滿意。

Latin America grew 3.6%, impacted by inflation-driven growth in Argentina. However, we delivered another good year in Mexico, posting mid-single digit growth as our gum and candy business executed well. We also delivered growth in the Western Andean cluster. Brazil declined low single digits, primarily due to competitive dynamics in our powdered beverage business. Earlier in the year, the business was also impacted by a national strike. However, we delivered positive results in our Brazilian biscuits business, which grew mid-single digits behind strengths in Club Social and Oreo. And although down for the year, the chocolate business finished on a positive note with low single-digit growth in Q4 and share gains.

拉丁美洲經濟成長3.6%，其中阿根廷的經濟成長受到通貨膨脹驅動的影響。然而，我們在墨西哥又迎來了一個好年頭，實現了中等個位數的成長，這主要得益於我們的口香糖和糖果業務的良好表現。我們在安第斯西部集群也實現了成長。巴西市場下滑幅度較小，主要原因是粉末飲料業務的競爭格局。今年早些時候，該公司也曾受到全國性罷工的影響。然而，我們在巴西的餅乾業務取得了積極的成果，在 Club Social 和 Oreo 的強勁表​​現推動下，實現了中等個位數的成長。儘管全年業績下滑，巧克力業務最終以積極的態勢收尾，第四季度實現了個位數低增長，市場份額也有所提升。

North America grew approximately 0.5% for the year. U.S. Biscuits continued to see good momentum, with low single-digit growth and share gains driven by brands like Oreo. We are proud that the team delivered material progress for the quarter. That said, there is still work to be done to drive improved levels of consistency, and we continue to expect progress in 2019, albeit not linear.

北美地區全年成長約0.5%。美國餅乾產業持續保持良好勢頭，實現了個位數低成長，市場份額也因奧利奧等品牌的推動而提升。我們為團隊在本季取得的實質進展感到自豪。儘管如此，要提高一致性水準仍有許多工作要做，我們仍然期待在 2019 年取得進展，儘管這項進展並非線性發展。

Now let's review our profit performance. In 2018, gross profit dollars grew by approximately 4% on a constant currency basis and ahead of revenue. Gains were driven by continued productivity, volume leverage and pricing. We look to build on this progress over the long term. Gross profit growth partially offset by additional investment drove adjusted operating income dollar expansion of more than 6% on a constant currency basis. This translated into operating income margin of 16.7%, up 60 basis points.

現在讓我們來回顧一下我們的獲利情況。2018 年，毛利以固定匯率計算成長了約 4%，高於營收成長。成長主要得益於生產效率的持續提高、銷售的提升以及價格的合理調整。我們希望在此基礎上取得長期進展。毛利成長部分被額外投資所抵消，導致經調整後的營業收入（以固定匯率計算）成長超過 6%。這意味著營業利潤率達到 16.7%，提高了 60 個基點。

In Q4, consistent with our long-term strategy, we invested additional dollars in growth initiatives, including point of sales and holiday season activations in Europe and Asia, A&C investments in Europe and Mexico chocolate and investments in China and Russia biscuit to sustain and accelerate momentum. Additionally, we spent in some R&D and marketing areas.

第四季度，我們按照長期策略，在成長計畫方面追加了投資，包括在歐洲和亞洲開展銷售點和假日季推廣活動，在歐洲和墨西哥投資巧克力，以及在中國和俄羅斯投資餅乾，以維持和加速成長勢頭。此外，我們在研發和行銷領域也投入了一些資金。

On a regional basis, gross margin expansion and cost execution drove margin improvement. Europe grew 60 basis points to 19.6%. North America was flat at 20.3% as higher conversion costs in U.S. factories and customer service and logistics cost limited expansion. Latin America increased by 90 basis points to 16.4%. And AMEA improved by 140 basis points to 14.4%.

從區域角度來看，毛利率的提高和成本控制推動了利潤率的改善。歐洲經濟成長60個基點，至19.6%。北美地區成長持平於 20.3%，原因是美國工廠較高的轉換成本以及客戶服務和物流成本限制了擴張。拉丁美洲成長90個基點，達到16.4%。AMEA 改善了 140 個基點，達到 14.4%。

I'll now briefly cover category highlights. Our 3 snacking categories continue to demonstrate solid growth as they have all year, growing at 2.7%. This is the strongest they have been in 3 years, and we remain encouraged by the underlying trends and untapped opportunities. Overall, we held or gained share in 60% of our business. Year-to-date, biscuits grew 2.8%. Approximately 80% of our revenue grew or held share in this category, including our U.S., France, China, Germany and Russia businesses. In chocolate, our business grew 3.5%. Approximately 40% of our revenue grew or held share, including Germany, Russia, China and India. The percent of businesses growing or holding shares was 50% in Q4, and it is further improving in the latest period. Gum and candy growth was slightly positive, reflecting modestly improved results in developed markets. About 40% of our revenue in this business gained or held share, including strength in China gum and solid U.S. candy performance.

接下來我將簡要介紹各類別的亮點。我們的三大零食類別持續保持穩健成長，全年成長率為 2.7%。這是他們三年來最強勁的時期，我們對潛在的發展趨勢和尚未開發的機會仍然感到鼓舞。總體而言，我們保持或增加了 60% 的業務份額。今年迄今為止，餅乾銷量成長了 2.8%。約 80% 的收入來自該類別，包括我們在美國、法國、中國、德國和俄羅斯的業務，這些收入實現了成長或維持了市場份額。在巧克力業務方面，我們的業務成長了 3.5%。約 40% 的收入實現了成長或維持了市場份額，其中包括德國、俄羅斯、中國和印度。第四季成長或保持股票比例為 50%，並且在最近一個季度進一步提高。口香糖和糖果的成長略為正，反映出已開發市場業績略有改善。該業務中約 40% 的收入實現了市場份額的成長或維持，其中包括中國口香糖業務的強勁表現和美國糖果業務的穩健業績。

Now turning to earnings per share. As is mentioned, 2018 was another year of strong adjusted EPS growth, increasing 15% on a constant currency basis. These results were driven primarily by strong operating gains, share repurchases, taxes, with our JV investments also performing well.

現在來看每股收益。如前所述，2018 年是調整後每股盈餘強勁成長的另一年，以固定匯率計算成長了 15%。這些業績主要得益於強勁的經營收益、股票回購和稅收，我們的合資投資也表現良好。

I'll now move on to our free cash flow results. For the year, we executed with excellence and delivered $2.9 billion of free cash flow, which was consistent with our outlook and a great outcome despite currency headwinds. This performance was driven by better net income conversion due to strong working capital management. As I mentioned at our Investor Day, this is a critical focus area for me, my team and the entire company.

接下來我將介紹我們的自由現金流結果。今年，我們執行力出色，實現了 29 億美元的自由現金流，這與我們的預期一致，儘管面臨匯率不利因素，但仍然取得了非常好的成績。這一業績的提升得益於良好的營運資本管理，從而提高了淨利潤轉換率。正如我在投資者日上提到的，這對我、我的團隊和整個公司來說都是一個至關重要的關注領域。

Turning to capital return. 2018 also marked another year of significant return of capital to our shareholders. We returned $3.4 billion in total as we repurchased $2 billion in stock and paid $1.4 billion in dividends. This includes an 18% increase to our cash dividends in Q3 as we continue to target dividend growth in excess of earnings.

轉向資本回報。2018 年也是我們向股東返還大量資本的另一年。我們總共返還了 34 億美元，其中 20 億美元用於回購股票，14 億美元用於支付股息。這包括第三季現金股利增加 18%，因為我們將繼續以股息成長超過獲利為目標。

Now let me provide some details around our outlook for 2019, which remains consistent with what we provided at our Investor Day last fall. I'd like to remind you that this is an important year of investment, as we continue to focus on accelerating volume-driven revenue growth for the long term.

現在讓我詳細介紹一下我們對 2019 年的展望，這與我們去年秋季投資者日上提供的資訊保持一致。我想提醒各位，今年是重要的投資年，我們將繼續專注於加速以銷售為導向的收入長期成長。

For the top line, we expect organic net revenue growth of 2% to 3%. With respect to earnings, we expect adjusted earnings per share growth of 3% to 5%, which reflects a step-up in investment levels in A&C, sales, R&D and quality. These investments will reinforce a growth cycle which we expect to lead to a high single-digit earnings growth over the long term. Our outlook for the free cash flow is approximately $2.8 billion, consistent with our results in 2018. Recall, this outlook includes additional cash tax impact resulting from U.S. tax reform. In this outlook, we also expect our 2019 adjusted effective tax rate to be in the low 20s and expect interest expense to be approximately $450 million, reflecting the increasing rate environment.

營收方面，我們預期有機淨收入將成長2%至3%。就獲利而言，我們預計調整後每股收益將成長 3% 至 5%，這反映了 A&C、銷售、研發和品質方面的投資水準有所提高。這些投資將鞏固成長週期，我們預期這將帶來長期的高個位數獲利成長。我們對自由現金流的預期約為 28 億美元，與我們 2018 年的業績一致。請注意，此展望還包括美國稅制改革帶來的額外現金稅收影響。在這種展望中，我們也預期 2019 年調整後的實際稅率將在 20% 左右，預計利息支出約為 4.5 億美元，反映出利率上升的環境。

2019 is an important year for Mondelez International. It will mark the first full year of our new approach to investing behind our strategic growth initiatives. Our new approach will set the stage for our long-term growth algorithm of 3% plus organic net revenue growth with a ramp-up in the outer years, high single-digit adjusted EPS, dividends greater than adjusted earnings and free cash flow of more than $3 billion.

2019年對億滋國際來說是重要的一年。這將標誌著我們為支持策略成長計畫而採取的新投資方式的第一個完整年度。我們的新方法將為我們長期成長演算法奠定基礎，該演算法將實現 3% 以上的有機淨收入成長，並在後期加速成長，實現高個位數的調整後每股收益，股息大於調整後收益，自由現金流超過 30 億美元。

With that, let's open the line for questions.

接下來，我們開放提問環節。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Andrew Lazar。

Two questions from me, if I could. I'll start with, Dirk, you've been in the CEO seat for just over 1 year now and have recently detailed the company strategy and growth algorithm along with a new organizational structure to support it. I'm trying to get a sense of how you're feeling about the company's momentum heading into this year? And I ask with particular interest in terms of organic sales trends because you've got incremental pricing that you've announced, incremental investment that we saw in both 4Q, and then expect it again throughout this year. I guess, if anything, it would seem like the organic sales growth target for this year perhaps could end up as a bit conservative? And I wanted to get your perspective on that, and then I have a quick follow-up.

如果可以的話，我想問兩個問題。首先，德克，你擔任執行長一職已有一年多時間，最近詳細闡述了公司策略和成長演算法，以及支持該策略和演算法的新組織結構。我想了解您對公司今年的發展動能有何看法？我特別想了解有機銷售趨勢，因為你們已經宣布了增量定價，我們在第四季度也看到了增量投資，而且預計今年全年都會如此。我想，如果非要說有什麼改變的話，那就是今年的有機銷售成長目標可能有點保守了？我想聽聽你的看法，然後我還有一個後續問題。

Okay, okay. So well, I would say a few reflections on how I feel after about 1 year and 3 months in the job. Probably the most important for me is -- was to deliver 2018 and I think we over-delivered on what we said we would do. And the quality, I think, was good. If I think about it, we accelerated our net revenue growth, which was volume driven and you said that. We also had some good price discipline. We continued to focus on our cost, and so we had good gross profit growth. And ROI and EPS growth was solid as well as the free cash flow generation. And on top, we were able to start reinvesting in Q4 to sustain the accelerated growth. So I feel good about all that.

好的，好的。嗯，我想就我入職一年三個月後的感受談談我的看法。對我來說，最重要的可能是——2018 年的成果，我認為我們超額完成了我們承諾要做的事情。我覺得品質很好。仔細想想，我們加快了淨收入成長，這是由銷售驅動的，你也說過這一點。我們的價格控制也做得很好。我們繼續專注於控製成本，因此實現了良好的毛利成長。投資報酬率和每股盈餘成長穩健，自由現金流產生情況也良好。此外，我們也能夠在第四季開始進行再投資，以維持加速成長。所以我對這一切都感到很滿意。

Second, as you pointed out, we developed our new strategy and financial algorithm for the company, which creates growth on the 3 levels said: more demand creation through a new approach to sales and marketing; more demand fulfillment through better execution and then new ideas; and innovation through a different mindset or different culture in the company.

其次，正如您所指出的，我們為公司製定了新的策略和財務演算法，從三個層面實現了成長：透過新的銷售和行銷方法創造更多需求；透過更好的執行和新的想法來滿足更多需求；以及透過公司內部不同的思維方式或不同的文化進行創新。

There's a number of big shifts in the company. One is about the balance between top and bottom line, not just focus on the bottom line. Dollars over percentage focus. Speed over perfection and a stronger focus on volume and market share. And it's giving us momentum, as you said. And so that confirms my observation that we have good potential, because snacking categories are doing well, they've been probably the best in the last 3 years in '18. We've got good margin expansion and we have good competitive levels that allow us to unlock investment and shift our focus to volume growth. And we can generate substantial free cash flow. So yes, of course, that makes you think you're stronger than you were a few years back.

公司內部正在發生一系列重大變化。一是要平衡收入和利潤，而不只專注在利潤上。關注金額而非百分比。速度重於完美，更重視銷售和市場佔有率。正如你所說，這給我們帶來了動力。因此，這證實了我的觀察，即我們擁有良好的潛力，因為零食類別表現良好，它們可能是過去三年中表現最好的，尤其是在 2018 年。我們擁有良好的利潤率成長和良好的競爭水平，這使我們能夠釋放投資潛力，並將重點轉移到銷售成長。而且我們還能產生可觀的自由現金流。所以，沒錯，這當然會讓你覺得自己比幾年前更強大了。

Why are you guiding towards the 2%, 3% top line growth? And yes, we have momentum in emerging markets. And if I think about 2018 and the mix of the pluses and minuses that we had, overall, we probably had a few more pluses. As you remember, the main driver of it was that we are lapping the malware year of 2017. So 2019 is a year that we need to, even if we guide towards that 2%, 3%, we need to step up our growth and we need to solidify our progress. If I would look at today and reflect about '19, probably the mix of risks and opportunities, weighs a little bit more towards risk. I'm talking largely the macroeconomics, Brexit, some of the commodity things we're seeing. So we also are stepping up, and you probably will point that out, our investments. We're doing it largely so that 2020 will be the year that we're starting to see some good growth. So we feel that the 2019 outlook is appropriate. But we are clearly entering the year with a good momentum.

為什麼你們的目標是達到 2% 或 3% 的營收成長？是的，我們在新興市場擁有發展動能。如果我回顧 2018 年，綜合考慮我們遇到的利弊，整體而言，我們遇到的利可能更多一些。你可能還記得，主要原因是我們即將告別 2017 年這個惡意軟體肆虐的年份。所以，2019 年，即使我們的目標是 2% 或 3%，我們也需要加快成長步伐，以鞏固已取得的進展。如果我回顧今天並反思 2019 年，風險和機會的結合可能會更偏向風險。我主要指的是宏觀經濟、英國脫歐以及我們目前看到的一些大宗商品市場方面的問題。所以我們也在加大投入，您可能也會指出，那就是我們的投資。我們這樣做主要是為了爭取在 2020 年實現良好的成長。因此，我們認為2019年的展望是適當的。但我們顯然帶著良好的發展勢頭進入了新的一年。

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Growe with Stifel.

你的下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Chris Growe 一線。

I had a question for you. You've had a pretty strong sustainable growth in your categories over the past few years and including in 2018. Do you expect that category growth rate to continue, and I think it was up 2.7% for your snacking categories. Is that what you'd expect for 2019 as well?

我有個問題想問你。過去幾年，包括 2018 年在內，你們的各個品類都實現了相當強勁的永續成長。您預期該品類成長率會持續維持嗎？我認為你們零食品類的成長率為 2.7%。你對2019年的預期也是這樣嗎？

Yes, yes, that's in our long-term strategic plan. We estimated that we will be circling around the 3% growth. And we are, at this stage, we're not see -- the 2.7% has been sort of consistent throughout '18, what we were seeing, and we're not seeing an immediate change for that in going into '19. So yes, we reconfirm that.

是的，是的，這在我們的長期策略規劃中。我們預計成長率將在 3% 左右。現階段，我們還沒有看到——2.7% 的成長率在整個 2018 年都比較穩定，我們看到的也是如此，而且我們也沒有看到進入 2019 年後這種情況會立即改變。是的，我們再次確認這一點。

Okay. And then as you look at your margin performance in 2019, I know there is a much more heavier focus on reinvestment and accelerating revenue growth. So you have cost savings coming through from simplify to grow. And then I suspect you're going to have some more, is it mostly SG&A investments. So could we see a stronger gross margin performance? And then maybe some of that given back, if you will, in the form of SG&A investments when it comes to A&C and route to market, and that kind of thing. Is that the way to think about the investment levels in 2019?

好的。然後，當你審視 2019 年的利潤率表現時，我知道你們更專注於再投資和加速收入成長。這樣，透過簡化流程就能實現成長，從而節省成本。然後我懷疑你還會有一些，主要是銷售、一般及行政費用投資嗎？那麼我們是否會看到更強勁的毛利率表現呢？然後，或許可以將其中一部分以銷售、管理及行政費用投資的形式返還給客戶，例如在廣告、廣告宣傳、市場管道等方面。這就是看待2019年投資水準的正確方式嗎？

So Chris, I think, look, as we said many times, we are trying to create a little bit of a cultural shift in the company and moving away from simple percentages. The clear commitment we have is to drive gross profit growth and OI growth and EPS growth. And as you think about that in the past by guiding to gross margin percentages and OI percentages, we left on the table, we believe, some opportunities. We gave you in the past a couple of examples, namely around channels and incrementality we see there or, for that matter, also local brands. I think we have what it takes to generate incrementality there and to deliver good return on investment. Make no mistake when we say that we are focusing on dollar growth. It doesn't mean that we will live outside productivity or the restructuring program that we announced in -- at the Investor Day, the continuation of the current program, or for that matter, things that we have done quite well, like ZBB and NBS over the last few years. So I think, as you think about the quality of the P&L in 2019, if you take out the additional investments we have, that are, as we said, in A&C but also in route to market or in quality or in R&D and marketing, I think if you take those out, the shape and the quality of the P&L is very consistent with what we did in 2018.

所以克里斯，我認為，正如我們多次說過的那樣，我們正在努力在公司內部創造一些文化上的轉變，並擺脫簡單的百分比計算方式。我們明確致力於推動毛利成長、營業收入成長和每股盈餘成長。而過去我們只關注毛利率和營業利益率，我們認為，這錯失了一些機會。我們過去曾舉過幾個例子，主要是關於管道和增量，或者就此而言，也包括本地品牌。我認為我們有能力在那裡取得增量成長，並獲得良好的投資回報。請不要誤解，我們說我們專注於美元成長。但這並不意味著我們將放棄生產力或我們在投資者日宣布的重組計劃，放棄當前計劃的延續，或放棄我們在過去幾年中做得相當不錯的零基預算和淨基預算。所以我認為，在考慮 2019 年損益表的品質時，如果剔除我們額外的投資（正如我們所說，這些投資包括 A&C、市場管道、品質、研發和行銷等方面的投資），我認為，剔除這些投資後，損益表的結構和品質與我們 2018 年的做法非常一致。

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane with Bank of America.

你的下一個問題來自美國銀行的布萊恩‧斯皮蘭。

Just -- I guess, just 2 questions from me. One, just in the fourth quarter, the margins in North America were pretty good. And I guess I just wanted to understand, since there is -- it sounds like there were some reinvestment there. Was there anything else there that was sort of unusual or flow through in North America, I guess, or was it just the pricing, the P-naught that helped? I was just trying to understand the margin performance in North America in the fourth quarter.

我只想問兩個問題。第一，光是第四季度，北美地區的利潤率就相當不錯。我只是想了解一下，因為聽起來那裡似乎有一些再投資。還有其他不尋常的因素或在北美流行的因素嗎？還是說只是價格，P-naught 起了作用？我只是想了解一下北美地區第四季的利潤率表現。

The margin was good, as you say, in North America. I think as you think about it, we did make improvements in reliability of the supply chain and the logistics network. And I think as we stabilize the situation a bit in terms of service levels, we were able to deliver efficiencies that in the other part of the year, we were not. I think you also saw that there was a little bit of a pricing favorability above and beyond the average of the year. There was some phasing, quite frankly, in there. So I think as you think about pricing, it was around about -- the number you have to keep in mind is the number that you see for the year, which is around about 1%. But I think in stepping back and looking into it, quite pleased in North America with the continued momentum we've seen in biscuit. Still some challenges in categories like gum. But in general, the margin that came through in Q4 was a good news for us, and that's the commitment of the team that did a nice job by stabilizing the situation in supply chain.

正如你所說，北美地區的利潤率很好。仔細想想，我們確實在供應鏈和物流網路的可靠性方面取得了進展。我認為，隨著服務水準的穩定，我們能夠提高效率，而這在今年其他時間是無法實現的。我想您也注意到了，價格方面略高於全年平均水平，存在一些優惠。坦白說，這裡面存在一些階段性問題。所以我覺得，在考慮定價時，你需要記住的數字是全年的數字，大約是 1%。但我認為，退後一步，仔細審視一下，我對北美餅乾市場持續成長的勢頭感到非常滿意。口香糖等品類仍面臨一些挑戰。但總的來說，第四季的利潤率對我們來說是個好消息，這要歸功於團隊的努力，他們很好地穩定了供應鏈的情況。

And then I guess as a follow-up to that, as we're thinking about, if service levels are improving in North America and hopefully continue to improve some in '19, are you going to be able to -- how are you thinking about the balance between investing and spending in North America and then actually being able to service the programs? Do you feel like you've -- you're maybe not spending as much or doing as much as you might ordinarily want to if you had full confidence in the ability to service it?

然後我想作為後續問題，正如我們正在思考的那樣，如果北美地區的服務水平正在提高，並且希望在 2019 年繼續有所提高，您是否能夠——您是如何考慮在北美地區進行投資和支出，以及實際為這些項目提供服務之間的平衡的？你是否感覺自己——或許因為對自身服務能力充滿信心，所以沒有像往常那樣投入那麼多資金或做那麼多事情？

That's the outlook we have in place at the moment. It clearly has investments in North America. Now having said that, there are still things that we need to look into. As we said in the last call, we implemented pricing and we are about to see the effects in the marketplace. So we need to stay flexible there and see how to best balance investments with pricing. We also want to be clear that while we believe we are making good progress and we see growth coming through, there is still work to be done in North America. So in general terms, I would say we will invest more behind categories like biscuits or categories like candy, even in gum. Our reality is we need to take an inventory of where we stand at the end of Q1 in terms of pricing and supply chain. And then I think we need to adjust, if the case.

這就是我們目前所持的展望。該公司顯然在北美有投資。話雖如此，我們仍然需要調查一些事情。正如我們在上次電話會議中所說，我們已經實施了定價策略，即將看到其對市場的影響。所以我們需要保持靈活，看看如何才能最好地平衡投資和定價。我們還要明確指出，雖然我們相信我們正在取得良好進展，並且看到了成長，但在北美仍有許多工作要做。所以總的來說，我認為我們會增加對餅乾、糖果甚至口香糖等類別的投資。現實情況是，我們需要在第一季末盤點一下我們在定價和供應鏈方面的現狀。如果情況屬實，我認為我們需要做出調整。

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Goldman with JPMorgan.

你的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Ken Goldman。

The primary pushback again on your stock is valuation and specifically on EVA/EBITDA. And I think as I talk to investors, many of them understand that the value of your joint ventures need to be added back. But plenty, don't, at least not at first glance can you get that. So to me, this issue is increasing, right. Investors are weighing EVA/EBITDA more heavily because debt levels have risen higher. So I guess my question is this. If the thesis is correct that investors are sort of, I guess, punishing companies like Mondelez for relying on unconsolidated operations, does that you -- does that make you, I guess, internally rethink the value of your joint ventures to your stock price? Or is that not really a way for you to factor that?

貴公司股票面臨的主要阻力仍然是估值，特別是 EVA/EBITDA 指標。而且我認為，在與投資者交談的過程中，他們中的許多人都明白，合資企業的價值需要重新計算出來。但很多時候，你不會這麼想，至少乍看之下不會。所以在我看來，這個問題越來越嚴重了，對吧。由於債務水準上升，投資者更加重視EVA/EBITDA指標。所以我想問的是…如果投資人確實在懲罰像億滋國際這樣依賴非合併業務的公司，這種說法是正確的，那麼——這是否會讓您重新思考合資企業對股價的價值？或者，你覺得這不是可以考慮的因素？

Look, I think we can clearly debate if we are overvalue or undervalue. I believe when I step back and I look at the opportunities we have as a company and the quality of the results that we delivered in '18, I feel quite good about the long-term guidance that we gave. And as a leading snacking company, ability to generate sustainably volume-driven growth of -- and resulting in revenue of 3%, high single-digit EPS and cash flow of $3 billion plus, I think it is something that is quite compelling. My reply to your specific question is, look, the JVs clearly don't roll up into our EBITDA. They're at around about 10% of our EPS. I believe that clearly it was a great investment. I believe there is still upside potential. So I think they are still undervalue. But the premise of Mondelez, I think tangibly, looking back at '18 and having us delivering in place of all the ForEx headwind that we had, a cash flow that was $2.9 billion with a conversion of net income that was, excluding the JVs for which we don't get much dividends, 130%. I think that should reassure investors that we have what it takes to win. And again, the premise of us being in emerging markets, seeing emerging markets growing 6% for the year, more than 6% for Q4, 40% of that growth being volume driven. I mean, I can tell you we are quite pleased. And I think as you think about the valuation, think about what our potential is as the leading snacking company in emerging markets or for that matter globally. So that will be my reply.

你看，我認為我們可以清楚地討論我們是否被高估或低估了。我認為，當我回顧公司所面臨的機會以及我們在 2018 年取得的成績時，我對我們給予的長期指導意見感到非常滿意。作為一家領先的零食公司，能夠實現可持續的銷量成長，並帶來 3% 的收入、接近兩位數的每股收益以及超過 30 億美元的現金流，我認為這非常有吸引力。對於你提出的具體問題，我的回答是，合資企業顯然不計入我們的 EBITDA。它們約占我們每股收益的 10%。我確信這顯然是一筆非常不錯的投資。我認為它仍有上漲空間。所以我認為它們的價值仍然被低估了。但我認為，回顧 2018 年，Mondelez 的前提是切實可行的，我們克服了所有外匯逆風，實現了 29 億美元的現金流，淨收入轉化率（不包括我們沒有獲得多少股息的合資企業）達到了 130%。我認為這應該能讓投資人放心，我們具備贏得勝利的條件。再次強調，我們身處新興市場，看到新興市場全年成長 6%，第四季成長超過 6%，其中 40% 的成長是由銷量驅動的。我的意思是，我可以告訴你，我們非常滿意。我認為，在考慮公司估值時，請想想我們作為新興市場乃至全球領先的零食公司所擁有的潛力。這就是我的答覆。

Okay. And then a quick follow-up. At the end of your prepared remarks, you reiterated your desire to grow dividends ahead of EPS growth. Can you elaborate on why this is the right decision? It feels to me, we just talked about I think investors are increasingly sensitive to debt. You're a company that's also increasingly emphasizing growth and that requires reinvestment. It just maybe feels to me like raising your dividend above earnings isn't the ideal strategy. But I'm just curious to hear the rationale behind the take there.

好的。然後是一個簡短的後續問題。在您準備好的發言結束時，您重申了您希望在每股收益成長之前提高股息的願望。你能詳細解釋為什麼這是一個正確的決定嗎？我覺得，就像我們剛才討論的那樣，投資者對債務越來越敏感。貴公司也越來越重視成長，這就需要再投資。我個人感覺，提高股利而不是提高獲利可能不是理想的策略。但我很好奇這種觀點背後的邏輯。

I think it is the confidence we have in the overall capital structure of the company. If you step back and if you think about the ability we have to generate free cash flow and our commitment that materialized in '18 of $3-plus billion from 2020 on, if you think about the balance sheet flexibility we have at our current leverage, but also with the fact that, we were fairly clear, the coffee stake is an investment for us, and it is not strategic. That gives us flexibility. So if you put the ability we have to generate cash, if you take into account the leverage that we have today, the coffee stake that we have, even in presence of M&A, I think we have what it takes to be able to have the flexibility to do share buybacks, to get dividends and also to make M&A. So I think you can update one piece, you have to look at all of this together. And all the elements are there, pointing in the direction that there is confidence in being able to raise dividends. Last time we did it, it was 18%. So we feel good about that.

我認為這源自於我們對公司整體資本結構的信心。如果你退後一步，想想我們創造自由現金流的能力，以及我們在 2018 年做出的從 2020 年起投入 30 億美元以上的承諾，再想想我們目前槓桿率下的資產負債表靈活性，但同時也要考慮到，我們已經非常明確地表示，咖啡股份對我們來說是一項投資，而不是戰略性的。這給了我們更大的彈性。所以，考慮到我們創造現金的能力，考慮到我們目前的槓桿率，以及我們持有的咖啡股份，即使考慮到併購，我認為我們也有能力靈活地進行股票回購、獲得股息以及進行併購。所以我覺得，你可以只更新其中一部分，但你必須把所有因素放在一起考慮。種種跡象表明，提高股利是有信心的。上次我們這樣做的時候，結果是 18%。所以我們對此感到很滿意。

Your next question comes from the line of Alexia Howard with Bernstein.

你的下一個問題來自 Alexia Howard 與 Bernstein 的對話。

So just a quick question. The emerging market growth ex Argentina, being in the 4% to 5%, still seems a little lackluster. I'm just trying to understand, how much of that was Brazilian gum, and what's the prognosis there? It sounds as though Brazil was down low single digits and some of the categories were positive, the gum business must have been in quite some trouble, so maybe some commentary there. And then just as a follow-up, some of the household products companies have complained, local competition in places like China has slowed them down quite a bit. What are you seeing out there in China relative to your local competitors? Do you think that's relevant to you -- is that something that you're worried about in terms of getting the emerging markets growing again?

我問個小問題。除阿根廷外，新興市場經濟成長率僅 4% 至 5%，仍略顯疲軟。我只是想了解一下，其中有多少是巴西牙齦，以及巴西牙齦的預後如何？聽起來巴西的經濟下滑幅度很小，只有個位數，而且有些類別的經濟數據是正成長的，口香糖產業肯定遇到了不少麻煩，所以也許可以對此做一些評論。此外，一些家居用品公司抱怨說，在中國等地的本地競爭已經大大減緩了他們的發展速度。與你當地的競爭對手相比，你認為中國市場有哪些優勢？你認為這與你有關嗎？你是否擔心新興市場能否再次成長？

Okay. Well, on Brazil, yes, Brazil was, of the emerging markets, probably the one that didn't perform as we would've hoped in 2018. But we feel that over the medium term, the growth prospects for Brazil are quite good. It wasn't really because of gum that 2018 was more difficult for us. It was really driven by 2 things. There was a bit of a price scuffle, I would say, in the chocolate category, which we are getting through. We see -- at the moment, we see good volume growth in chocolate in Brazil. We addressed the price gaps and we started to gain share in the last quarter. In biscuits, we were largely flat as it relates to share. So it was really on top of the chocolate issue, it was the powdered beverages, which in Brazil, we are seeing a colder summer. So a slowdown in Q4, and we are expecting the same in Q1 of our powdered beverages sales. And then on top overall, the powdered beverage category is doing a little bit less than cold drinks in general. And then us, within that category, losing some market share. So that was the real driver for Brazil.

好的。嗯，說到巴西，是的，在新興市場中，巴西可能是 2018 年表現不如我們預期的國家之一。但我們認為，從中長期來看，巴西的成長前景相當不錯。2018 年對我們來說更艱難，其實不是因為口香糖。這其實是由兩件事驅動的。巧克力品類出現了一些價格上的小摩擦，我們正在努力解決這個問題。目前，我們看到巴西巧克力銷量成長良好。我們解決了價格差距問題，並在上個季度開始獲得市場份額。在餅乾方面，我們在份額方面基本持平。所以，問題的關鍵其實在於巧克力，而在於即溶飲料，在巴西，我們正經歷一個較為涼爽的夏天。因此，第四季成長放緩，我們預計第一季粉末飲料的銷售額也會出現同樣的情況。此外，整體而言，粉狀飲料品類的表現略遜於冷飲品類。然後，我們在這個類別中也失去了一些市場份額。所以，這才是巴西隊真正的奪冠動力。

As it relates to China, we obviously, like everybody else, have the local competition. But we're pretty happy with our performance in China. We had another solid quarter which is the sixth consecutive quarter of growth for us in China. All of our categories are growing. In gum, we are increasing our market share quite considerably because we launched a new product called Stride Waves, which is the same as the Trident Vibes here in the U.S. And then in chocolate, we launched our Milka Magic Cup and there also we have about 0.5 point of market share gains. And then in biscuits where we have the most local competition, we have been really doing well with more than 1-point gain of our market share, combined between online/off-line. We've got some pretty heavy growth going on in our e-commerce business in China, which is up almost 80% for the year. So overall, yes, there is a competition. But at this stage, we feel like we're doing quite well in China.

至於中國，顯然我們和其他人一樣，面臨本土競爭。但我們對我們在中國的表現相當滿意。我們又迎來了一個穩健的季度，這是我們在中國連續第六個季度實現成長。我們所有產品類別都在成長。在口香糖領域，我們的市佔率大幅成長，因為我們推出了一款名為 Stride Waves 的新產品，它與美國的 Trident Vibes 相同。在巧克力領域，我們推出了 Milka Magic Cup，市佔率也成長了約 0.5 個百分點。而在餅乾領域，由於本地競爭最激烈，我們表現得非常出色，線上線下市佔率加起來成長了超過 1 個百分點。我們在中國的電子商務業務發展勢頭強勁，今年以來成長了近 80%。所以總的來說，是的，存在競爭。但就目前而言，我們感覺在中國做得相當不錯。

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Moskow with Crédit Suisse.

你的下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的羅伯特·莫斯科。

Two quick questions. You mentioned A&C investments in the quarter. I don't know if I heard you quantify how much A&C was up year-over-year. Can you give us a sense of what it was in the quarter and then the year ago -- I'm sorry, for the overall year, how much it was up?

兩個問題，簡單問一下。您提到了本季的A&C投資。我不知道我是否聽到你具體說明了A&C的年增長幅度。您能否大致介紹一下本季和去年同期的情況——抱歉，是去年全年的情況——增長了多少？

And then secondly, pricing down a lot in Europe. My impression is that, especially in the U.K., that a lot of pricing needs to go higher to offset higher input costs. And then of course, the Brexit situation might make that -- accentuate that. Do you have a contingency plan if there is a hard Brexit this year?

其次，歐洲市場價格大幅下降。我的印像是，尤其是在英國，很多商品的價格需要上漲才能抵銷更高的投入成本。當然，英國脫歐局勢可能會加劇這種情況。如果今年出現硬脫歐，你們是否有緊急應變計畫？

Thank you, Robert. So maybe Dirk will take the Brexit. I'll start by commenting a bit on your A&C question and pricing. As we said, we activated more investments in Q4. But we are not going to quantify it. By the way, it was A&C and as we saw good momentum in India chocolate, in China biscuits and gum, in Russia chocolate and biscuits, we gained in Russia alone more than 2 points of share in the last 12 months. So as we saw this economy is doing very well, as we saw volume-driven growth. I think we put more A&C. And I think it was our decision. As we said, we are trying to invest in our local brands as well. But it was not only A&C. I think if you look at what we did in Q4. For instance, we spent money in seasonal activation in big countries like the U.K., Germany and the -- for instance, in India, in Australia. But we also spend in route to market. And finally, we had investments in marketing and R&D. I think if you think about the quantum, it was clearly materializing. So the quality of the earnings, we had gross margin growing 90 basis points for the quarter, half of it dropped to the bottom line. So we reinvested quite a bit. Going forward, we will reinvest even more. The difference is going to be that it will involve more countries and more brands. As to pricing, I wouldn't get, quite frankly, very fixated on the Q4 pricing impact for Europe, there was some phasing in there. What I can tell you is that in general, the total pricing for the company was in the right place. Europe specifically was able to generate nice gross profit growth. So gross margin was up in Europe again. So it was puts and takes between pricing and commodities and ForEx that we have effectively covered for Europe. I don't think there is much to worry at this point in time on pricing in Europe, with the exception of may be Brexit that Dirk is going to talk about in a minute.

謝謝你，羅伯特。所以，德克或許會接受英國脫歐。我先就您提出的A&C問題和定價問題發表一些看法。正如我們所說，我們在第四季度加大了投資力度。但我們不會對其進行量化。順便一提，是A&C公司，我們在印度的巧克力市場、中國的餅乾和口香糖市場、俄羅斯的巧克力和餅乾市場都取得了良好的發展勢頭，僅在俄羅斯，我們在過去12個月中就獲得了超過2個百分點的市場份額。正如我們所見，這個經濟體發展得非常好，我們看到了銷售驅動型成長。我認為我們應該投入更多A&C資源。我認為這是我們自己的決定。正如我們所說，我們也在努力投資本土品牌。但不僅僅是A&C。我認為，如果你看看我們在第四季所做的事情。例如，我們在英國、德國等大國以及印度、澳洲等地投入資金進行季節性推廣活動。但我們在產品上市流程上也有支出。最後，我們也在行銷和研發方面進行了投資。我認為，如果你從量子力學的角度來看，它顯然是物質化的。因此，就獲利品質而言，本季毛利率成長了 90 個基點，但其中一半卻降到了淨利潤。所以我們又投入了相當多的資金。展望未來，我們將加大再投資力道。不同之處在於，它將涉及更多國家和更多品牌。至於定價方面，坦白說，我不會太關注第四季度歐洲的定價影響，因為其中存在一些分階段實施的情況。我可以告訴你的是，總的來說，公司的整體定價是合理的。歐洲尤其實現了可觀的毛利成長。所以歐洲的毛利率再次上升。因此，我們已經有效地涵蓋了歐洲市場中價格、大宗商品和外匯之間的博弈。我認為目前歐洲的價格方面沒有什麼值得擔心的，除了德克馬上要談到的英國脫歐可能帶來的影響。

So as it relates to Brexit, yes, I mean, the U.K. is an important business for us, and we have a very good team there that's very solid. And I think they're very well equipped to weather through this situation. We don't know, and that's the difficulty of Brexit, we don't quite know what's going to happen here. So we have to really prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And the worst is clearly a hard Brexit. We are assessing all the potential scenarios, and we do feel that Brexit will for sure have a short-term and a medium-term impact. Over the long term, we believe that it will stabilize itself, and we will come back to where we are today. And obviously, there's a huge difference between a hard Brexit and a softer Brexit. So as it relates to the hard Brexit, our contingency plan is quite extensive. And it basically is focused on the disruption and the ease of the flow of the goods. And so we've invested in additional resources in logistics operations. That means we've rented many more trucks, we've rented much more warehousing space, we've increased our inventories. We are making sure that we are capable even in difficult circumstances to maintain our customer service. And we are very focused on demand planning. And so we've also increased, for instance, our additional raw and packaging materials in the U.K. and in Europe. Now Brexit could come with other effects like devaluations or tariffs, maybe a loss of consumer confidence in the first part. Those types of things, we have not included in our current guidance. But we are preparing for it in case it would happen. I hope that yesterday's vote helps a little bit to avoid the hard Brexit. And then as it relates to pricing, I think we will have to see what happens, particularly with Brexit itself to make decisions. At the moment, our pricing is adapted to the current situation, but we are ready to adapt the pricing as Brexit would start to happen.

所以就英國脫歐而言，是的，我的意思是，英國對我們來說是一項重要的業務，我們在那裡擁有一支非常優秀、非常可靠的團隊。我認為他們完全有能力渡過難關。我們不知道，這就是英國脫歐的困難所在，我們並不完全清楚接下來會發生什麼事。所以我們必須做好最壞的打算，並且抱持著最好的希望。而最糟糕的情況顯然是硬脫歐。我們正在評估所有可能的情況，我們認為英國脫歐肯定會對短期和中期產生影響。從長遠來看，我們相信它會趨於穩定，我們會回到今天的樣子。顯然，硬脫歐和軟脫歐之間存在著巨大差異。因此，針對硬脫歐，我們的緊急計畫相當全面。它主要關注的是貨物流通的中斷和便利性。因此，我們加大了對物流營運的資源投入。這意味著我們租用了更多的卡車，租用了更多的倉儲空間，增加了庫存。我們正在確保即使在困難的情況下，我們也能維持良好的客戶服務。我們非常注重需求預測。因此，例如，我們也增加了在英國和歐洲的原材料和包裝材料的採購量。英國脫歐可能還會帶來其他影響，例如貨幣貶值或關稅，或許在初期還會導致消費者信心下降。這些類型的內容，我們目前尚未納入指導方針中。但我們正在為此做好準備，以防萬一。我希望昨天的投票結果能對避免硬脫歐有一點幫助。至於定價方面，我認為我們得看看事態發展，尤其是英國脫歐本身，才能做出決定。目前，我們的定價已根據當前情況進行了調整，但隨著英國脫歐的開始，我們已準備好調整定價。

Your next question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs.

你的下一個問題來自高盛的傑森·英格利希。

I appreciate that you're focused on the holistic portfolio now and don't want to spend time dwelling on the legacy sort of Power Brands versus non-Power Brands. But I'm going to try anyways. Because the strategy clearly is one of trying to activate the periphery of the portfolio. And I'd love to give a bit more context of how it's working so far. So is there any sort of performance metric you can give us and how these non-Power Brands are progressing as you extend the investment?

我很欣賞您現在專注於整體投資組合，而不想花時間糾結於傳統意義上的強勢品牌與非強勢品牌之間的區別。但我還是要試試。因為該策略顯然是試圖啟動投資組合的邊緣部分。我很樂意進一步介紹一下目前為止的進展。那麼，您能否提供一些績效指標，以及隨著投資的增加，這些非主力品牌的發展如何？

Yes, we can explain that a little bit. So I wouldn't say it's the periphery of the portfolio. Our non-Power Brands or our non-global brands are sometimes quite important. And we're really using them in synergy to try to cover as many aspects of the consumer needs that exist. And so for instance in Russia, we become leaders in chocolate by using the combination of Alpen Gold and Milka to be the leaders in the market. So it's more than the periphery. It's really playing off-brands against each other and making sure that we activate all of those brands. So that is still, of course, a work in progress. But I would say that we have seen the Power Brands continuing largely on their trend of about 3% growth, and then we've seen the local brands go down -- go up, sorry, from a negative growth in the past to close to a 1% growth in the last quarter. That's sort of the shift we're seeing. And obviously, that's only after about 4 months of activation of those local brands. So we're expecting to see more growth in 2019.

是的，我們可以稍微解釋一下。所以我不會說它是投資組合的邊緣部分。我們的非實力品牌或非全球品牌有時也相當重要。我們真正地將它們協同運用，以盡可能滿足消費者的各種需求。例如，在俄羅斯，我們透過結合 Alpen Gold 和 Milka，成為巧克力市場的領導者。所以，它不只是周邊地區。實際上就是讓非主流品牌相互競爭，並確保我們啟動所有這些品牌。所以，這當然仍然是一項正在進行中的工作。但我認為，我們看到強勢品牌基本上繼續保持約 3​​% 的成長趨勢，而本土品牌則出現了下滑——抱歉，應該是上調，從過去的負成長到上個季度接近 1% 的成長。這就是我們目前看到的轉變。顯然，這只是在這些本地品牌激活約 4 個月後的結果。因此，我們預計2019年將看到更大的成長。

Excellent. And I want to come back to a comment you made in prepared remarks about empowering people to snack right. I guess, snack right means lots of things to lots of people. But to me, it seems to connote a degree of health and wellness, which is not something, I think, comes top of mind when we think about your portfolio. So can you talk about the context around that statement in terms of your vision and whether or not it does entail a bigger push in health and wellness? And if so, how much of this would be sort of strategic M&A in priority versus organic?

出色的。我想回到您在準備好的演講稿中提到的關於鼓勵人們正確吃零食的觀點。我想，「吃得健康」對不同的人來說意味著不同的東西。但在我看來，它似乎暗示著某種程度的健康和幸福，而我認為，當我們想到你的投資組合時，這並不是我們首先想到的。那麼，您能否從您的願景角度談談這句話的背景，以及它是否意味著在健康和福祉方面需要更大的投入？如果真是如此，其中有多少是優先考慮的策略性併購，又有多少是內部成長？

Yes. It means many things. It does have a health and wellness connotation. But if I take it up one step, it is a recognition that the same consumer, depending on the moment of the day and the situation in which she finds -- he or she finds himself, can make different decisions. And when we say right, we mean that we want to offer the right product for the right occasion. And we see, as we look around at what's going on and what's growing, in percentage, it's the more "health and wellness oriented" categories. But in dollars, it's still the old biscuits, chocolate, ice cream and categories like that, that are getting the biggest growth. As it relates to health and wellness, yes, we clearly have an intent to do several things. It probably starts with constantly trying to improve the ingredients on our product, the sourcing of our raw materials and maybe that's not necessarily health related, but we're thinking about Cocoa Life or our Harmony wheat programs that we have, which are about more sustainability of the raw materials and so on. But I think that's also these days something that the consumer appreciates as we do that in our brands. We will also eliminate as much as we can, fat and salt and things like that. And yes, we will need to have more pure health-oriented brands. We have several. belVita would be the one that most comes to mind, but we have clearly an intent, apart from continuing to improve our current brands, to launch more health-oriented options under our current brands or to launch new brands, or -- and you're right, that might have to be partially also through M&A. But I wouldn't say it's more biased in one or another direction. It's a little bit of a whole spectrum of activity that we have in mind.

是的。它有很多含義。它確實帶有健康和保健的含義。但如果我更進一步，那就是承認同一個消費者，根據一天中的不同時刻以及他/她所處的具體情況，可能會做出不同的決定。我們所說的“合適”，是指我們希望在合適的場合提供合適的產品。當我們環顧四周，觀察正在發生的事情和正在成長的領域時，我們發現，從百分比來看，更「以健康和保健為導向」的類別佔比更高。但就美元而言，成長最快的仍然是傳統的餅乾、巧克力、冰淇淋以及類似的類別。至於健康和保健方面，是的，我們顯然有意願做幾件事。這可能始於我們不斷嘗試改進產品成分、原材料採購，這或許與健康無關，但我們正在考慮可可生活或我們的和諧小麥計劃，這些計劃旨在提高原材料的可持續性等等。但我認為，如今消費者也開始欣賞我們在品牌中所做的這一點。我們也會盡可能減少脂肪、鹽之類的東西的攝取。是的，我們需要更多純粹以健康為導向的品牌。我們有好幾個。belVita 是最先想到的品牌，但除了繼續改進我們現有的品牌之外，我們顯然還有意在現有品牌下推出更多以健康為導向的選擇，或者推出新品牌，或者——你說得對，這可能部分也需要通過併購來實現。但我不會說它更偏向某一方面。我們設想的活動範圍很廣。

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Strycula with UBS.

你的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的史蒂夫·斯特里庫拉。

So my question is for Dirk to kick it off would be how do I think about some of the more impactful investments in A&C and just in your broader route to market you're making this year? Specifically, Dirk, what are the key markets where sales force headcounts for Mondelez employees increasing and then which emerging markets with local iconic brands matter most in your opinion? Then I have a short follow-up for Luca.

所以我的問題是，請 Dirk 首先談談，您認為 A&C 今年在更廣泛的市場管道方面進行的一些更有影響力的投資，您是如何看待的？具體來說，Dirk，你認為億滋國際銷售人員數量增加的關鍵市場有哪些？另外，你認為哪些擁有在地標誌性品牌的新興市場最為重要？接下來我要向盧卡問一個簡短的後續問題。

Yes. Well, I would say where the manpower matters is largely in emerging markets, the reason being that a lot of the sales are still happening to mom-and-pop and smaller stores, which you have to physically cover. And so the country that come to mind to be able to do that are, of course, India, but even Russia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East. Those are the markets where we are planning to invest overall in how we cover the stores and get a bigger universal coverage. It's not only people. It's also driven by the equipment that we might need, trucks, or in-store display equipment. In the hotter climates for our chocolate business, we need coolers. So that's really what, for us, is what we mean when we say we are going to invest in route to market. And I think I took you through the market that we are going to do that. As it relates to the significant emerging markets for us, while we're seeing at the moment, we're seeing double-digit growth in India, we're seeing double-digit growth in Russia. We talked about Brazil that wasn't -- '18 wasn't a great year, but that's a key market for us. We are also -- China, of course, we need to look at the opportunity we have, they're mid-single digit, but we would like to increase that. And then the markets where I would say our presence -- all those markets I've talked about, there's probably close to a $1 billion for us more or less, give or take. Southeast Asia, there's still a few markets there where our presence is not as big as it should be, or market share is not as big as it should be. So we're also planning to do so, quite some investments in there.

是的。嗯，我認為人力投資至關重要的地方主要在新興市場，原因是許多銷售仍然發生在夫妻店和小商店，而你必須親自去覆蓋這些地方。因此，能夠做到這一點的國家，當然是印度，但俄羅斯、東南亞、非洲、中東等地也有可能。這些是我們計劃全面投資的市場，旨在改善門市覆蓋率，實現更廣泛的普及覆蓋率。不僅僅是人。這也取決於我們可能需要的設備，例如卡車或店內展示設備。在氣候炎熱的地區，我們的巧克力業務需要冷藏設備。所以，對我們來說，這就是我們所說的「投資市場管道」的真正意義。我想我已經向你們展示了我們將要進入的市場。就我們重要的新興市場而言，目前我們看到印度和俄羅斯都實現了兩位數的成長。我們談到了巴西，那一年——2018 年對我們來說並不好，但巴西是我們的關鍵市場。當然，我們也要關注中國，我們需要看看我們所擁有的機會，他們的成長率目前是中個位數，但我們希望提高這個數字。然後，就我所說的那些市場而言，我們涉足的市場——所有這些我談到的市場，我們的投資可能接近 10 億美元左右。在東南亞，我們仍有一些市場的規模不夠大，或是市佔率不夠大。所以我們也計劃這樣做，會在那裡進行相當多的投資。

Okay, great. And then Luca, since you're trying to direct our attention to focus more on profit dollar growth as an industry, how should we think of -- or as a company, how should we think about for '19, EBIT dollar trends on a constant currency basis? Is it a currency headwind?

好的，太好了。盧卡，既然你試圖引導我們更加關注整個行業的利潤美元增長，那麼我們應該如何看待——或者作為一家公司，我們應該如何看待 2019 年按固定匯率計算的息稅前利潤美元趨勢？這是貨幣逆風嗎？

Look, we -- again, I think if you look at the guidance we gave in terms of EPS, 3% to 5%. We guided on interest cost at $450 million. I can -- you can walk it back up and see that it is, I guess, around about the same EPS growth that you have. There are puts and takes obviously, but that's what it is.

你看，我們——再說一遍，我認為如果你看看我們給出的每股收益預期，3%到5%。我們預計利息成本為4.5億美元。我可以——你可以把它往回推算一下，你會發現，我猜，它的每股收益增長率和你們的差不多。交易中當然會有輸贏，但事實就是如此。

Your next question comes from the line of David Driscoll with Citi.

你的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 David Driscoll。

Two small modeling questions and then just one bigger question. What's your inflation forecast for 2019? And then on the organic revenue forecast of 2% to 3%, would it be correct to assume that that would skew towards pricing as opposed to vol/mix? And then I have a follow-up, please.

兩個小的建模問題，然後是一個較大的問題。您對2019年的通貨膨脹率有何預測？那麼，對於 2% 到 3% 的有機收入預測，是否可以假設這將主要體現在價格方面，而不是銷售/產品組合方面？我還有一個後續問題。

Look, on the inflation, we are not going to break that out in terms of composition of cost inflation, ForEx inflation, commodity. I think as you model, think about commodities being pretty much in line with what we have seen this year in terms of inflation. There is clearly logistics cost that is creating a little bit of a pressure point. That was one of the key drivers that drove us, increasing pricing in North America for 2019, but we also see some packaging. And the ForEx, to a certain extent, is one of the components that is creating a little bit of pressure in terms of inflation. And again, we are taking action, obviously. Clearly, we are covering our exchange rate exposure throughout the year. And we had good coverage at this point. I think we took advantage of some of the dips that we saw recently. For instance, for the Brazilian real. On the composition of the 2% to 3%, I prefer not to go there. We are not going to give guidance on that specifically. Clearly, as you think about what we said in the context of Investor Day, we believe that volume growth is the right thing. And when you think about the various regions, I think we will continue seeing good momentum in terms of volume in EU, same in AMEA, L.A., clearly there is Argentina and some inflationary pressure. And in North America, we need to wait and see what happens with the price increase as it becomes effective in the marketplace. And so I think there, we had to see if the elasticity we model is the right one, or if it is better or worse.

你看，關於通貨膨脹，我們不會將其細分為成本通貨膨脹、外匯通貨膨脹、商品通貨膨脹等組成部分。我認為，在建立模型時，要考慮到大宗商品價格與我們今年看到的通膨情況基本一致。物流成本顯然造成了一定的壓力。這是促使我們在 2019 年提高北美地區價格的關鍵因素之一，但我們也看到了一些包裝上的變化。外匯市場在某種程度上是造成通膨壓力的因素。顯然，我們正在採取行動。顯然，我們全年都在對沖匯率風險。當時我們的報道覆蓋面很廣。我認為我們利用了近期出現的一些價格下跌機會。例如，巴西雷亞爾。至於那 2% 到 3% 的成分，我不想深入探討。我們不會就此提供具體指引。顯然，結合我們在投資者日上所說的話，我們認為銷售成長是正確的做法。從各個地區來看，我認為歐盟、AMEA、洛杉磯的銷售量將繼續保持良好勢頭，當然阿根廷也面臨一些通膨壓力。而在北美，我們需要拭目以待，看看價格上漲在市場上生效後會發生什麼事。所以我覺得，我們必須看看我們建立的彈性模型是否正確，或者說，它是更好還是更差。

And then on the investments that you're making in 2019, can you give us some color on the pacing of those investments? And then also, one clarification on your fourth quarter comment, I believe you used the phrase, something like you accelerated your investments and they began in the fourth quarter. Does that mean that the dollar amounts of investment in '19 is now less because some of it took place in the fourth quarter? Or is it just in aggregate going up because you had flexibility in the fourth quarter? Again, please don't forget the pacing part of the investment question for '19.

那麼，關於您在 2019 年進行的投資，您能否為我們介紹這些投資的進度安排？另外，關於您第四季度的評論，我想澄清一點。我相信您曾說過，您加快了投資步伐，這些投資是從第四季開始的。這是否意味著 2019 年的投資金額（以美元計）減少了，因為其中一部分投資發生在第四季？或者只是因為第四季有更大的彈性，所以整體才上漲？再次提醒，請不要忘記 2019 年投資問題的節奏部分。

No, I didn't forget the pacing term. So let me answer that first. I think as you think about it, it is fairly even throughout the various quarters. Bear in mind that there are seasonal events throughout the year. So Easter, for instance, happens to fall in 2019, a little bit later than it did in 2018, so it is a Q2 event. And there are other seasonal events. But specifically on A&C, it is equally phased throughout the quarter, I would say, give or take.

不，我沒有忘記“節奏”這個術語。那我就先回答這個問題吧。仔細想想，我覺得各季度之間的差距其實相當小。請注意，一年中會有各種季節性活動。例如，2019 年的復活節比 2018 年晚了一些，所以它屬於第二季事件。還有其他一些季節性活動。但具體到A&C，我認為它在整個季度中是均勻分佈的，大致如此。

The other part, does it mean we are going to reduce our investment in '19? And no, the answer is no...

另一方面，這是否意味著我們將在 2019 年減少投資？不，答案是否定的…

The answer is no. Yes...

答案是否定的。是的...

It's clear that our intent that the investment base of '19 is -- we're going to increase on that in '20, yes, maybe not at the same pace as in '19 but we are trying to change our circle here to a virtuous circle. So our objective is to keep on going and in that way increase our top line growth.

很明顯，我們的目標是在 2019 年的投資基礎上——我們將在 2020 年增加投資，是的，也許不會像 2019 年那樣快速成長，但我們正在努力將我們的循環轉變為良性循環。因此，我們的目標是繼續前進，從而提高我們的營收成長。

And our final question comes from the line of David Palmer with RBC Capital Markets.

最後一個問題來自加拿大皇家銀行資本市場的戴維‧帕爾默。

Just a real general one on execution. You've talked about trying to improve that execution and accountability by pushing some decision-making down to the regional level. It looks like, from the outside, like Europe has been executing pretty well. And perhaps that will be tested by higher input prices and that requiring pricing which is never easy there. And then conversely, North America has seemingly struggled far longer than it should have post malware, especially with some of the competition pretty distracted. But it seems to be a little bit of an early stage here of getting its act together. Could you perhaps just walk us around the world or the regions that you see where the execution is today and where you see it going?

只是關於執行方面的一個非常籠統的問題。您曾談到要透過將一些決策權下放到區域層級來提高執行力和問責制。從外部來看，歐洲似乎做得相當不錯。或許更高的投入價格會對此構成考驗，而更高的投入價格又會帶來定價難題，定價從來都不是一件容易的事。反過來，北美在惡意軟體爆發後似乎經歷了比預期更長的艱難時期，尤其是一些競爭對手的注意力都被分散了。但目前看來，它似乎還處於籌備階段的早期階段。您能否帶我們了解目前在世界各地或各個地區看到的執行情況，以及您認為未來的發展方向？

Yes. And maybe before I do that, we look at execution in more than in general execution. We are trying to split that up in several different groups, if I can. And of course, there is the supply-chain execution and that has to be see with how good are we at buying our raw materials and our packs, how good are we running our plants, how well are we doing our demand planning and our deployment and so on and so on. And as you can imagine, there's always areas there where anywhere in the world, people can improve. But apart from the supply chain, it also has to see with commercial execution. That goes from marketing and ROI and our marketing activities around the world and how are we going to drive that. And can we use the latest technology to drive that as an in-store presence and that improvement of our route-to-market that we were talking about. So it's wider than you might think. If I go around the world, I would say in general, we have an objective in all regions of the world to clearly increase our ROI and our marketing and our sales activities. And everybody has opportunity there. As it relates to the execution in the supply chain, you're right. In general, our supply chain in Europe is clearly performing better and a well-oiled machine and the U.S. is getting there or North America is getting there, but it's going to take a little bit of time. And if you take into account that they are still using some of our older factories to do so. As it relates to the rest of the world, I would say Latin America is making big strides as it relates to their supply chain, and it's working very well. And in AMEA, we are also pretty happy with where we stand. There are differences between the different countries but also going quite well. But I think you cannot see this as a black and white, they're doing it well or they're not doing it well. Every single region can lift itself to the next level, and that's really the challenge. If you're in a company like ours and we focus on margin and cost to just make sure that we're running our plants in a better way, we run our supply chain in a better way, get the waste out of there, bring down overtime, run our lines optimally, that's really what we're talking about here. And I can tell you that anywhere in the world, we have opportunity to improve that. It's more difficult in some areas, but the opportunity to my opinion is quite big like it would be in any other big company, to my opinion.

是的。或許在此之前，我們應該從更細緻的角度來審視執行情況，而不僅僅是從一般的執行情況來看。如果可以的話，我們正嘗試將它分成幾個不同的組。當然，還有供應鏈執行方面的問題，這需要從我們採購原材料和包裝的品質、工廠的營運效率、需求計劃和部署等方面來衡量。正如你所想，在世界各地，總有一些領域可以改進。但除了供應鏈之外，還要考慮商業執行情況。這涉及到行銷和投資回報率，以及我們在世界各地的行銷活動，以及我們將如何推動這些活動。我們能否利用最新技術來推動店內銷售，並改善我們先前提到的市場通路？所以它比你想像的還要寬。如果我環遊世界，我會說，總的來說，我們在世界各地都有一個共同的目標，那就是明確提高我們的投資回報率，並加強我們的行銷和銷售活動。那裡每個人都有機會。就供應鏈執行層面而言，你說得對。總的來說，我們在歐洲的供應鏈顯然運作得更好，就像一台運作良好的機器，美國或北美也在朝著這個方向發展，但這需要一些時間。而且你還要考慮到他們仍然在使用我們的一些老舊工廠來生產。就世界其他地區而言，我認為拉丁美洲在供應鏈方面取得了長足進步，而且運作良好。在AMEA地區，我們也對目前的狀況相當滿意。各國之間存在差異，但整體而言進展順利。但我認為不能簡單地用非黑即白的眼光來看待這件事，不能簡單地說他們做得好或做得不好。每個地區都有可能提升到更高水平，這才是真正的挑戰。如果你在像我們這樣的公司，我們專注於利潤和成本，以確保我們更好地運營工廠，更好地運營供應鏈，消除浪費，減少加班，優化生產線，這才是我們真正想說的。我可以告訴你，在世界任何地方，我們都有機會改善這種情況。在某些領域，情況會更困難一些，但我認為機會很大，就像在其他任何大公司一樣。

I think that brings us to the end of today. So in closing, I would say that 2018 was a great year for us. We had good top line growth. We had solid profitability. We improved our free cash flow. We created and set in motion a new strategy that I think is the right approach, and it's the right time to deliver higher quality sustainable growth for the company. And as I look at 2019 and the year ahead, I am encouraged by the health of our snacking markets and the categories in which we operate. I think our teams are energized. We're happy about what we've achieved. We're excited about the future. And I think the new structure and incentive plans we've put in place are giving people the liberty and then the potential to really go and do and make things happen. It will be a year of investment as we pointed out. But we think it's the right thing to do because we believe we can lift this business to a higher level of growth. And that will lead to better returns for investors.

我想今天的內容就到此結束了。最後我想說，2018 年對我們來說是非常棒的一年。我們的營收成長勢頭良好。我們獲利狀況良好。我們的自由現金流有所改善。我們制定並實施了一項新策略，我認為這是正確的方法，現在正是為公司帶來更高品質、永續成長的合適時機。展望 2019 年和未來一年，我對我們零食市場以及我們所經營的各個品類的良好發展狀況感到鼓舞。我認為我們的團隊充滿活力。我們對自己所取得的成就感到滿意。我們對未來充滿期待。我認為我們建立的新結構和激勵計劃賦予了人們自由，也賦予了他們真正採取行動、成就一番事業的潛力。正如我們之前指出的，這將是投資之年。但我們認為這樣做是正確的，因為我們相信我們可以將這項業務提升到更高的成長水平。這將為投資者帶來更高的回報。

So I look forward to continuing to share our progress. I will probably see you all in CAGNY, and thank you again for your interest in the company.

因此，我期待繼續與大家分享我們的進展。我可能在卡尼會見到大家，再次感謝大家對公司的關注。

This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。