Double

Consumers are getting more careful with spending, Andre Schulten, the company’s chief financial officer, said on the call. “That just means we need to double down on our view of what superiority in some of our lower-value tiers means,” he added. That may include communicating the value and quality of products to consumers.

Other consumer products makers have had similar results after increasing prices. In February, PepsiCo said it would not raise its prices further after multiple rounds of increases helped it achieve better-than-expected results in its fourth quarter. And Unilever said this year that it would continue to raise prices but ease the increases in the second half of the year.

Higher prices can frustrate consumers, said Ms. Kodali, the Forrester analyst. Brand loyalists, or “inelastic customers,” are likely to keep buying products at higher prices, but other customers have already changed their shopping habits — as evidenced by Procter & Gamble’s decrease in sales volume.

A customer turned off by rising prices for Pampers disposable diapers, for example, might start using cloth alternatives instead. That customer will be hard for Procter & Gamble to win back.

Higher prices may be good for corporate profits, but they have complicated the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame inflation by cooling the economy via a series of interest rate increases that started last year. Late last month, the Fed raised its benchmark rate to a range of 4.75 to 5 percent, up from near zero just over a year ago.