P&G, Sprint earns beat forecasts, Colgate meets

• Procter & Gamble revenue falls 4%
• P&G rival Colgate cutting 6% of workforce
• Sprint revenue up 5%, loses subscribers

Procter & Gamble (PG) says its first-quarter net income fell 7% on a cost-cutting restructuring and the negative impact of a stronger dollar.

Rival Colgate-Palmolive (CL) managed to eke out a 2% increase in third-quarter net income even as revenue slipped 1%. The company plans to cut 6% of its workforce by 2016 to improve efficiency.

P&G's adjusted results beat expectations, and the world's largest consumer products maker reiterated its annual guidance. Cincinnati, Ohio-based P&G is in the midst of a plan to cut costs and focus on its most profitable markets and categories.

Net income at P&G fell to $2.8 billion, or 96 cents per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. That's down from $3 billion, or $1.03 per share, last year.

Excluding restructuring and European legal charges, core earnings totaled $1.06 per share. Analysts expected 96 cents per share. Revenue fell 4% to $20.7 billion from $21.5 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $20.8 billion.

Colgate

The New York-based consumer products giant will cut more than 2,310 workers over the next four years in a push to make the consumer products company more efficient.

Savings for the program should total between $365 million to $435 million annually by the end of 2016. The cuts were announced Thursday as the company posted a 2% increase in third-quarter net income. Revenue slipped 1%.

The stronger dollar is hitting all companies that do business globally. U.S. companies are posting smaller gains on overseas sales after currency exchanges at the same time that they are raising prices to offset higher costs for raw materials.

Colgate-Palmolive reported net income of $654 million, or $1.36 per share for the three months ended Sept. 30. That compares with $643 million, or $1.31 per share in the year-ago period. The results include special charges related to the sale of land in Mexico and other costs.

Excluding those charges, Colgate earned $1.38 per share on revenue of $4.4 billion from $4.4 billion. Analysts had expected $1.38 per share on revenue of $4.4 billion.

Sprint Nextel

Subscriber trends are turning south again for Sprint Nextel (S) as it struggles to compete with Verizon Wireless, juggernaut of the industry.

The country's No. 3 wireless carrier Thursday said it lost 423,000 overall subscribers for the first time in two and a half years in the third quarter, as customers gave up on the moribund Nextel network and the company failed to sign up enough of them on the Sprint network.

It's the first time Sprint Nextel is reporting quarterly results since agreeing to sell 70% of itself to Japanese cellphone company Softbank for $20.1 billion. The deal hasn't closed yet, but Sprint has already borrowed money from its new owner.

Sprint bought the Nextel network in 2005, and it's been a major reason for Sprint's consistent quarterly losses the last five years. Nextel phones are known for their push-to-talk capability, but the network doesn't support the kind of data rates that smartphones require, and it's not compatible with the Sprint network. Sprint is shutting it down next year.

Sprint's loss was $767 million, or 26 cents per share, for the July-September quarter, from a loss of $301 million, or 10 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 5% to $8.8 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of 43 cents per share on $8.8 billion in revenue for the Overland Park, Kan., company.