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Kimberly-Clark makes and sells everyday paper and personal care products like diapers, tissues, and paper towels.
Kimberly-Clark makes the things you grab without thinking: toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, and diapers. Its brands are the ones sitting in your bathroom and your baby's room — Cottonelle and Scott for toilet paper, Viva and Scott for paper towels, Kleenex for tissues, and Huggies and Pull-Ups for diapers. It also sells adult care products and professional wipes and dispensers to hospitals, offices, and restaurants. Most people don't seek these products out; they buy whatever is on the shelf, which is exactly why the brand names matter so much.
The business splits into three parts. Personal care covers diapers, training pants, and feminine and adult care. Consumer tissue covers the paper products you buy at the grocery store. And the professional arm sells dispensers, wipes, and safety products to businesses and institutions. The company earns money by selling high-volume, low-cost items through big retailers like Walmart and Target, plus distributors and online sellers. Its edge comes from scale — making enormous quantities cheaply — and from brands shoppers trust enough to reach for by name. That trust is not accidental. Kimberly-Clark spends heavily on advertising to keep Huggies and Kleenex in people's heads. But the business has a stubborn problem: these products are commodities. Store brands cost less and work fine, and retailers push their own labels. Rivals like Procter & Gamble fight for the same shelf space with Pampers. The company also faces rising pulp and energy costs, and it has limited power to raise prices without losing shoppers to cheaper alternatives.
In recent years Kimberly-Clark has been shrinking and simplifying. It sold or spun off much of its international tissue business, cutting lower-margin operations to focus on stronger brands and faster-growing markets. The company generates solid free cash flow, and it returns much of that to shareholders through dividends and buybacks — in 2024 it repurchased roughly 3% of its shares. It is a mature, steady business rather than a fast grower, betting that trusted brands and scale will keep it relevant in a category where customers rarely think about who made the roll.
Saved answer · last researched 5 Nov 2026