Unilever has announced that growth was lower than expected in its third quarter - slowing down in both India and China.
The consumer products giant has said it maintained momentum in the quarter, with a "good balance between volume and price".
But reporting its results in the two Asian countries, Unilever, whose Advanced Manufacturing Centre is in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, said growth in India "softened further" in the quarter, whilst China "slowed a little".
The countries are viewed as two of Unilever's most significant emerging markets.
Alan Jope, the firm's CEO, said: “We have maintained momentum in the quarter, with a good balance between volume and price. Emerging markets and Home Care have been the key growth drivers. We will step-up competitive top line performance through innovation and portfolio evolution to serve the faster growing geographies and channels.
"We are committed to delivering superior long-term financial performance and balanced, compound growth of the top and bottom line through our sustainable business model.
"We are taking action to remain relevant to the consumer of the future, such as setting stretching goals on plastic use which we recently announced. For the full year, we continue to expect underlying sales growth to be in the lower half of our multi-year 3-5% range, an improvement in underlying operating margin that keeps us on track for the 2020 target and another year of strong free cash flow."
Mr Jope has been focusing his time on countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh, where it's believed an emerging middle class as well as growing populations are upping demand for household products.
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In terms of the Wirral firm's overall performance, the financial statement released on Thursday said growth remained "low" in Europe and North America.
Underlying sales growth was 2.9% with 1.4% from volume and 1.5% from price.
Despite the lower than expected growth in China and India, emerging markets "continued to grow well", the report said, at 5.1% with "strong growth" across South East Asia.
Growth in India remained "stable and competitive in a slowing market".
In Latin America, Brazil grew "modestly against a strong comparator" - which included some recovery from the truckers’ strike in 2018, with the firm also reporting "lapping a strong ice cream season in Europe".
Turnover was £13.3bn, and the firm said underlying profit for beauty and personal care products grew 2.8%, home care grew 5.4%, and food and refreshment grew 1.7%.