April 23 (Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co(PG), the world's largest household products maker, reported a higher quarterly profit on Wednesday, helped by an increase in sales of its home care products.
Sales were unchanged at $20.6 billion. Organic sales, which exclude the impact of divestitures and acquisitions, rose 3 percent.
Organic sales in P&G's fabric care and home care division, which generates almost one third of sales, rose 6 percent. Brands in that category include Tide, Febreze air freshener and Duracell batteries.
Grooming, its most profitable business, saw sales rise 1 percent. P&G's struggling beauty division, which includes Head & Shoulders and Olay, improved, with sales up 2 percent.
The maker of Pampers diapers and Tide detergent earned $2.61 billion, or $0.90 per share, in the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, up slightly from $2.57 billion, or $0.88 per share, a year earlier. Core earnings per share, excluding restructuring charges, rose 5 percent to $1.04.
P&G left its fiscal 2014 forecasts unchanged. It still expects organic sales to rise 3 percent to 4 percent, and core earnings to rise 5 percent to 7 percent. (Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York, Editing by Franklin Paul and Sofina Mirza-Reid)
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