P&G profit helped by cost controls

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co <PG.N> on Wednesday posted higher quarterly profit as cost controls helped offset soaring prices for oil and other commodities.

The world's largest consumer products maker, with brands ranging from Pampers diapers to Olay skin-care products, reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $2.71 billion, or 82 cents a share, compared with $2.51 billion, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier.

P&G said net sales rose 9 percent to $20.5 billion.

Analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 81 cents a share on sales of $20.4 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Like other consumer products makers, P&G has faced soaring costs for items like oil, the resin used in packaging, and other raw materials.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumers have been hit by soaring prices for food and gasoline, among other economic woes. Still, P&G said in February that it had not seen signs that consumers are leaving its brands -- which also include Tide laundry detergent, Gillette razors and Crest toothpaste -- for lower-priced products.

"P&G has seen limited trade down to private label in its categories despite the U.S. economic slowdown," SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst William Chappell wrote in a research note. "It is seeing a consumer shift to club, dollar and mass channels, but its overall growth rate in the U.S. is relatively unchanged in the past six months," wrote Chappell, who has a "neutral" rating on the stock.

P&G said it expects fourth-quarter earnings of 76 cents to 78 cents a share.

The company raised its full-year earnings forecast to $3.48 and $3.50 a share. The bottom end of its range was previously $3.46 a share.

P&G's shares rose 2.8 percent to $67.75 in pre-market trading.

(Reporting by Justin Grant, additional reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Steve Orlofsky)