Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world's largest household products maker, has reported a dip in quarterly profit as its push in emerging markets led to a lower gross profit margin.

Chief financial officer Jon Moeller said that sales in emerging markets had risen eight per cent during the second quarter, easily outpacing developed markets, where sales barely edged up.

But P&G's gross margin is lower in those markets as the company establishes itself. Still, the costs are worth paying, said one investor.

"The emerging markets are definitely the future for P&G," said Matt McCormick, portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel, which manages about $11 billion and has long owned P&G and Kimberly-Clark shares.

Moeller said its market shares in both emerging and developed sectors had held steady.

Earlier this weak, rival Unilever said it would stick to its emerging markets growth strategy as a fourth-quarter recovery in sales there boosted 2013 results.

P&G's gross profit margin slipped 0.9 percentage points, in part because of stagnant sales of its beauty products, which have higher margins. The margins were helped by lower manufacturing costs.

P&G, the maker of Pampers diapers and Tide detergent, left its 2014 forecasts unchanged. It still expects organic sales, which strip out the impact of currency changes as well as acquisitions and divestitures, to rise three four per cent, and core earnings to rise 5pc to 7pc.

"It is reassuring to see it has confidence it can hit the numbers, despite the weak categories," J P Morgan analyst John Faucher wrote in a note.

The company's beauty division continued to struggle during the quarter, with organic sales unchanged as skin care results slipped. P&G's health care segment reported the fastest growth, rising 5 per cent.

The company earned $3.43 billion, or $1.18 per share, in its fiscal second quarter ended December 31, down from $4.06 billion, or $1.39 per share, a year earlier. Core earnings per share, excluding restructuring charges, fell 1 per cent to $1.21. Analysts expected $1.20 a share.

Sales rose 0.5 per cent to $22.28 billion, in line with the average Wall Street estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Organic sales rose 3 per cent. Rival consumer goods company Kimberley Clark reported that organic sales rose 5 per cent, and forecast they would rise 3 per cent to 5 per cent in 2014.-Reuters