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Kimberly-Clark is a long-established American multinational hygiene and consumer paper products conglomerate, founded in 1872. It operates production facilities across 34 countries, distributes its portfolio of household brands to over 175 global markets, and employs approximately 45,000 people worldwide. It is widely recognized as a pioneer in multiple consumer personal care categories, with many of its product lines becoming de facto generic terms in regional markets.
Key moments
1872Officially founded by four co-founders in Neenah, Wisconsin, U.S.
1890Launched its first Scott branded bathroom toilet paper product line
1907Debuted the world's first mass-produced Scott branded paper hand towel
1920Released Kotex, the first widely accepted commercial disposable feminine hygiene pad
1924Launched Kleenex, the world's first mass market facial tissue product
1929Completed initial public offering and listed on the New York Stock Exchange
1978Launched its flagship global Huggies baby diaper brand
1980Introduced Depend, the first mainstream mass market adult incontinence product line
1989Released Pull-Ups, the pioneering disposable training pant for toddlers
2007Opened a new dedicated global R&D laboratory at its original Neenah, Wisconsin site
Kimberly-Clark holds top-tier market positioning across multiple high-priority consumer and industrial hygiene segments globally. Its over 150 years of accumulated first-to-market innovation and deep cross-generational brand equity create high customer loyalty that most smaller competitors cannot replicate, though it faces sustained margin pressure from fluctuating pulp raw material costs and rising competition from low-cost private label offerings.
Baby care segment: Primary global rivals are Procter & Gamble (Pampers line) and Unicharm, with Kimberly-Clark securing a stable top 2 global market share position for its Huggies branded diaper and training pant portfolio
Feminine care segment: Competes directly against Procter & Gamble's Always and Tampax lines, alongside fast-growing niche direct-to-consumer menstrual product brands that target younger, eco-conscious demographic groups
Professional industrial hygiene segment: Rival players include DuPont, Ansell and regional specialized paper suppliers, with its Wypall and Kimtech lines serving cleanroom, healthcare and commercial facility clients
Consumer tissue segment: Faces competition from low-cost supermarket private label brands and regional local paper producers, while the Kleenex brand maintains strong premium pricing power in most mature North American, European and Asian markets
Kimberly-Clark stands as one of the most influential legacy consumer hygiene and paper product brands in the global mass goods market, with over 150 years of accumulated consumer trust built on consistent, category-defining innovation. Its portfolio of iconic sub-brands including facial tissue, baby care, and personal hygiene lines have become deeply embedded in daily household routines across dozens of markets, earning top-of-mind recognition that few competing consumer goods conglomerates can match. Many of its core product lines have even achieved eponymous status in multiple regional markets, where consumers use the brand name as a generic term to refer to entire product categories.
The group’s brand strength is further reinforced by its unbroken track record of quality delivery across generations of consumers, creating a durable competitive moat that insulates it from most smaller challengers in the space. Recent strategic investments in sustainability initiatives and public hygiene advocacy programs have also strengthened its public reputation, helping it maintain loyalty even amid sustained cost pressure from fluctuating pulp prices and rising competition from low-cost private label alternatives. Its long history of responsible corporate operations has turned the parent Kimberly-Clark brand into a trusted signal of safety and reliability for families worldwide.
Brand Leadership
Score: 92/100
As a top three global player in the personal and household hygiene segments, Kimberly-Clark holds leading market share in core categories including facial tissue, disposable baby diapers, and adult incontinence products across most North American, European, and high-growth emerging markets, with multiple of its sub-brands holding number one category rankings for more than 40 consecutive years.
Consumer Interaction
Score: 87/100
The brand maintains deep cross-generational connections with consumers via family-focused marketing campaigns, direct integration of user feedback into product R&D pipelines, and community hygiene education initiatives, with verified repeat purchase rates that are roughly 20 percentage points higher than the average for competing mass market hygiene brands.
Brand Momentum
Score: 78/100
In recent years, the brand has rolled out a full line of low-plastic, eco-friendly product SKUs and expanded accessible, budget-friendly hygiene solutions for underserved low-income regional markets, helping it offset mild market share erosion from low-cost private label offerings and align with rising consumer demand for sustainable everyday goods.
Brand Stability
Score: 94/100
Having operated continuously for more than 150 years without major bankruptcy, divestiture of core business assets, or industry-altering reputational crisis, Kimberly-Clark has retained its top-tier market positioning even through periods of global economic recession, raw material supply chain disruption, and large-scale public health events.
Brand Heritage Age
Score: 97/100
Founded in 1872, Kimberly-Clark is one of the oldest continuously operating consumer goods conglomerates in North America, with over 150 years of accumulated brand equity that has been recognized and trusted across at least three generations of consumers in most of its core operating markets.
Industry Profile
Score: 91/100
The brand is widely recognized as a foundational pioneer of the modern global hygiene products industry, credited with inventing and commercializing multiple now-ubiquitous categories including disposable facial tissue and mass-market disposable baby diapers, and it regularly sets widely referenced industry benchmarks for product safety and performance standards.
Globalization Footprint
Score: 89/100
With active production facilities in 34 countries and product distribution reaching more than 175 national markets, Kimberly-Clark has successfully localized its brand portfolio to align with regional cultural preferences and local affordability levels, building high brand recognition in both mature Western markets and fast-growing Southeast Asian, Latin American, and African markets.
This brand value analysis is supported by AI-assisted reasoning around Kimberly-Clark's public operating data, market positioning, and verified consumer perception metrics, and all figures included in this entry are illustrative for reference purposes only. For official, fully audited brand value results for Kimberly-Clark, please contact the World Brand Lab directly.
area served
Worldwide
key people
Michael D. Hsu (chairman & CEO)
products
Kimberly-Clark
Kleenex
Huggies
Kotex
Depend
Scott
Viva
Cottonelle
Andrex
Huggies Pull-Ups
GoodNites
Little Swimmers
Poise
Neat Sheet
revenue
US$20.1 billion (2024)
operating income
US$3.21 billion (2024)
net income
US$2.55 billion (2024)
assets
US$16.5 billion (2024)
equity
US$840 million (2024)
num employees
38,000 (2024)
footnotes
‡R1R‡
website
https://www.kimberly-clark.com/en-us/
Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational consumer goods and personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrextoilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes and Huggies disposable diapers and baby wipes.
Founded in Neenah, Wisconsin, in 1872 and based in the Las Colinas section of Irving, Texas, since 1985, the company operated its own paper mills around the world for decades, but closed the last of those in 2012.[2][3] With recent annual revenues topping $18 billion per year, Kimberly-Clark is regularly listed among the Fortune 500.As of March 2020, the company had approximately 40,000 employees.[4]
History
Kimberly, Clark and Co. was founded in 1872 by John A. Kimberly, Havilah Babcock, Charles B. Clark and Franklyn C. Shattuck in Neenah, Wisconsin, with $42,000 of capital.[5] The group's first business was operating paper mills, which the collective expanded throughout the following decades.In 1888, the fledgling company faced a significant setback when its groundwood "Atlas" paper mill burned. Through an extensive effort by labor and management, within five months the mill was rebuilt and in production at a greater capacity. In that same year the company began rapid expansion, purchasing land in a town then known as The Cedars for a new groundwood pulp plant designed by prominent paper mill architects D. H. & A. B. Tower.[6] In 1889, the town was renamed Kimberly after John A. Kimberly.The company would also contract the firm to expand its vast sulphite pulp complex in Appleton, Wisconsin, which allowed it to become the first firm west of Pennsylvania to adopt this improved manufacturing process.[7][8]
Ownership and subsidiaries
Kimberly-Clark shares are mainly held by institutional investors (The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and others).[38] Its subsidiaries include Kimberly-Clark Professional.[39]
Midwest Airlines
The origin of Midwest Airlines can be traced back to 1948, when Kimberly-Clark opened its corporate flight department and began providing air transportation for company executives and engineers between the company's headquarters in Neenah and its paper mills.
In 1969, K-C Aviation was born from the company's air operations, and was dedicated to the maintenance of corporate aircraft. In 1982, K-C Aviation initiated shuttle flights for Kimberly-Clark employees between Appleton, Memphis, and Atlanta. With this experience, and considering the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Kimberly-Clark and K-C Aviation formed a regularly scheduled passenger airline, Midwest Express Airlines, which was started on June 11, 1984.
Major product lines
Major American consumer product lines
Kimberly-Clark produces mostly paper-based consumer products.The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments.Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes and Huggiesdisposablediapers and baby wipes.
Army nurses used cellu-cotton pads as disposable sanitary napkins,[9] and six years later the company introduced Kotex, the first disposable feminine hygiene product.[10]Kleenex, a disposable handkerchief, followed in 1924.
Kimberly & Clark joined with The New York Times Company in 1926 to build a newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada.
Two years later, the company went public as Kimberly-Clark.[11]
The firm expanded internationally during the 1950s, opening plants in Mexico, West Germany and the United Kingdom. It began operations in 17 more foreign locations in the 1960s. The company formed Midwest Express Airlines from its corporate flight department in 1984.Kimberly-Clark's headquarters moved from Neenah, Wisconsin to Irving, Texas the following year,[12] although its products are still produced in Neenah.Alongside Cadbury, Kimberly-Clark withdrew advertising support for Lou Grant in 1982, due to pressure from various conservative caucuses campaigning against star Ed Asner.[13] Under the leadership of Darwin Smith as CEO from 1971 to 1991, the company was transformed from a business paper company to a consumer paper products company.
In 1991, Kimberly-Clark and The New York Times Company sold their jointly owned paper mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario.Kimberly-Clark entered a joint venture with Buenos Aires-based Descartables Argentinos S.A. to produce personal care products in Argentina in 1994[14] and also bought the feminine hygiene unit of VP-Schickedanz (Germany) for $123 million[14] and a 90% stake in Handan Comfort and Beauty Group (China).[15]
Kimberly-Clark merged with Scott Paper in 1995 for $9.4 billion.[16] In 1997, Kimberly-Clark sold its 50% stake in Canada's Scott Paper to forest products company Kruger Inc.[17] and bought diaper operations in Spain and Portugal[18] and disposable surgical masks maker Tecnol Medical Products.[19] Augmenting its presence in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, in 1999 the company paid $365 million for the tissue business of Swiss-based Attisholz Holding.[20] Expanding its offerings of medical products, the company bought Ballard Medical Products in 1999 for $774 million[21] and examination-glove maker Safeskin in 2000 for about $800 million.[22]
Also in 2000, the company bought virtually all of Taiwan's S-K Corporation; the move made Kimberly-Clark one of the largest manufacturers of packaged goods in Taiwan.[23] The company later purchased Taiwan Scott Paper Corporation for about $40 million and merged the two companies, forming Kimberly-Clark Taiwan.[24] In 2001, Kimberly-Clark bought Italian diaper maker Linostar and announced it was closing four Latin American manufacturing plants.[25]
In 2002, Kimberly-Clark purchased paper-packaging rival Amcor's stake in an Australian joint venture.[27] In 2003, Kimberly-Clark added to its global consumer tissue business by acquiring the Polish tissue maker Klucze.[28]
In early 2004, chairman and chief executive officer Thomas Falk began implementation of a global business plan that the company has detailed in July 2003. The firm combined its North American and European groups for personal care and consumer tissue under North Atlantic groups. In 2019, CEO Thomas Falk resigned his position but continued on as the company's chairman of the board. COO Michael D. Hsu became CEO following Falk's retirement.
As of March 2020, the company had approximately 40,000 employees.[4] In April 2020, the Financial Times reported that panic-buying during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 13 percent increase in sales of Kimberly-Clark's consumer tissues in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the previous year.[29] In April 2020, Kimberly Clark reported an eight percent decline in organic sales, its worst sales performance in at least a decade, according to the Wall Street Journal.[30]
In 2022, Kimberly-Clark acquired majority stake in Thinx, a period underwear brand.[31] Sales declined significantly by 2022 as customers lost the brand's trust regarding the controversy behind the use of PFAS in its products, ending in a class action settlement in 2023.[32] The company eventually recorded an asset impairment for Thinx and Softex Indonesia of $658 million in 2023.[33]
On May 19, 2025, Kimberly-Clark announced that after 41 years, it would transfer its stock from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq Global Select Market with the changes taking place on May 30 of that year.[34]
On April 7, 2026, the Kimberly-Clark Distribution Center in Ontario, Californiawas set on fire and destroyed.This was filmed by the arsonist, who stated in the video, "all you had to do was pay us enough to live," and "there goes your inventory."[14][37]
The name of the airline was shortened to Midwest Airlines in 2003.
K-C Aviation divested itself from the airline in 1996. Two years later, Gulfstream Aerospace purchased K-C Aviation from Kimberly-Clark for $250 million, which included its operations at airports in Dallas, Appleton, and Westfield, Massachusetts.[41]
Little Swimmers: swim diapers, marketed under the Huggies brand
Huggies Pull-Ups: training pants for toddlers undergoing toilet training, marketed under the Huggies brand
GoodNites (DryNites outside North America): pull-on diapers for children, teens and young adults who experience nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting), spun off from the Pull-Ups brand
Poise: Pads and liners for light to moderate urinary incontinence in adult women
Kotex is a feminine hygiene product line that includes pantiliners, pads and tampons.
Kotex
Kotex is a feminine hygiene product line that includes pantiliners, pads and tampons.
Tissues and wipes
Cottonelle
Cottonelle is a brand name for bath products.Product forms include premium bath tissue and flushable moist wipe products.In June 2019, the Federal Court of Australia found in favour of Kimberly-Clark Australia in Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) case against them for the claim that Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths were advertised as "flushable" in Australia's sewerage system, in contrast to other similar products which warned consumers against flushing them.
The court said that although they contributed to household sewerage system blockages in an unknown number of instances, even faecal matter and toilet paper contributed to those problems. The ACCC argued unsuccessfully that Kimberly-Clark shouldn't be able to take advantage of the difficulty to isolate individual causes in individual cases, and that it was a significant cause of systematic issues.[42] On October 13, 2020, the Cottonelle brand flushable wipes issued a recall because the products manufactured between February through September 2020 may contain Pluralibacter gergovaie.[43]
Kleenex
Kleenex is a brand name of facial tissue paper. Many versions have been made, including "with lotion, our softest ever!" and "regular". In the 1970s, color psychologist Dr. Cody Sweet represented newly styled Kleenex boxes as a national media spokesperson.
Scott
Scott is a brand name of paper napkins, paper towels and bath tissue/wipes.
Viva
Viva is a brand name of heavy-duty paper towels.[44][45]
Cottonelle
Cottonelle is a brand name for bath products.Product forms include premium bath tissue and flushable moist wipe products.In June 2019, the Federal Court of Australia found in favour of Kimberly-Clark Australia in Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) case against them for the claim that Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths were advertised as "flushable" in Australia's sewerage system, in contrast to other similar products which warned consumers against flushing them.
The court said that although they contributed to household sewerage system blockages in an unknown number of instances, even faecal matter and toilet paper contributed to those problems. The ACCC argued unsuccessfully that Kimberly-Clark shouldn't be able to take advantage of the difficulty to isolate individual causes in individual cases, and that it was a significant cause of systematic issues.[42] On October 13, 2020, the Cottonelle brand flushable wipes issued a recall because the products manufactured between February through September 2020 may contain Pluralibacter gergovaie.[43]
Kleenex
Kleenex is a brand name of facial tissue paper. Many versions have been made, including "with lotion, our softest ever!" and "regular". In the 1970s, color psychologist Dr. Cody Sweet represented newly styled Kleenex boxes as a national media spokesperson.
Scott
Scott is a brand name of paper napkins, paper towels and bath tissue/wipes.
Viva
Viva is a brand name of heavy-duty paper towels.[44][45]
Little Swimmers: swim diapers, marketed under the Huggies brand
Huggies Pull-Ups: training pants for toddlers undergoing toilet training, marketed under the Huggies brand
GoodNites (DryNites outside North America): pull-on diapers for children, teens and young adults who experience nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting), spun off from the Pull-Ups brand
Poise: Pads and liners for light to moderate urinary incontinence in adult women
Kotex is a feminine hygiene product line that includes pantiliners, pads and tampons.
Kotex
Kotex is a feminine hygiene product line that includes pantiliners, pads and tampons.
Tissues and wipes
Cottonelle
Cottonelle is a brand name for bath products.Product forms include premium bath tissue and flushable moist wipe products.In June 2019, the Federal Court of Australia found in favour of Kimberly-Clark Australia in Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) case against them for the claim that Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths were advertised as "flushable" in Australia's sewerage system, in contrast to other similar products which warned consumers against flushing them.
The court said that although they contributed to household sewerage system blockages in an unknown number of instances, even faecal matter and toilet paper contributed to those problems. The ACCC argued unsuccessfully that Kimberly-Clark shouldn't be able to take advantage of the difficulty to isolate individual causes in individual cases, and that it was a significant cause of systematic issues.[42] On October 13, 2020, the Cottonelle brand flushable wipes issued a recall because the products manufactured between February through September 2020 may contain Pluralibacter gergovaie.[43]
Kleenex
Kleenex is a brand name of facial tissue paper. Many versions have been made, including "with lotion, our softest ever!" and "regular". In the 1970s, color psychologist Dr. Cody Sweet represented newly styled Kleenex boxes as a national media spokesperson.
Scott
Scott is a brand name of paper napkins, paper towels and bath tissue/wipes.
Viva
Viva is a brand name of heavy-duty paper towels.[44][45]
Cottonelle
Cottonelle is a brand name for bath products.Product forms include premium bath tissue and flushable moist wipe products.In June 2019, the Federal Court of Australia found in favour of Kimberly-Clark Australia in Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) case against them for the claim that Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths were advertised as "flushable" in Australia's sewerage system, in contrast to other similar products which warned consumers against flushing them.
The court said that although they contributed to household sewerage system blockages in an unknown number of instances, even faecal matter and toilet paper contributed to those problems. The ACCC argued unsuccessfully that Kimberly-Clark shouldn't be able to take advantage of the difficulty to isolate individual causes in individual cases, and that it was a significant cause of systematic issues.[42] On October 13, 2020, the Cottonelle brand flushable wipes issued a recall because the products manufactured between February through September 2020 may contain Pluralibacter gergovaie.[43]
Kleenex
Kleenex is a brand name of facial tissue paper. Many versions have been made, including "with lotion, our softest ever!" and "regular". In the 1970s, color psychologist Dr. Cody Sweet represented newly styled Kleenex boxes as a national media spokesperson.
Scott
Scott is a brand name of paper napkins, paper towels and bath tissue/wipes.
Viva
Viva is a brand name of heavy-duty paper towels.[44][45]
Mexican consumer product lines
The Mexican market has most of the American products, as well as these products:
Diapers: KleenBebe, a brand similar to Huggies. The name is a combination of "kleen" (Kleenex) and "bebe" (Spanish for "baby").
Professional and medical markets.
Major professional and global products
KimWipes
KimWipes are a type of cleaning tissue commonly used in laboratories.They are intended for applications in which leaving lint or fibers on a surface would be undesirable, such as on slides and pipettes.They are sometimes used to clean lenses, but use on optical lenses with special water- and solvent-based coatings may cause light blemishes, and the manufacturer recommends using a wipe specifically designed for use with coated lenses. KimWipes are composed of virgin wood pulp from certified forests, with few chemical additives.
WypAll
WypAll is a brand name for cleaning towels, wipes, and cloths. They are used in industrial settings and laboratories.
DryNites
DryNites are a version of GoodNites sold in Europe and Australasia.
KimWipes
KimWipes are a type of cleaning tissue commonly used in laboratories.They are intended for applications in which leaving lint or fibers on a surface would be undesirable, such as on slides and pipettes.They are sometimes used to clean lenses, but use on optical lenses with special water- and solvent-based coatings may cause light blemishes, and the manufacturer recommends using a wipe specifically designed for use with coated lenses. KimWipes are composed of virgin wood pulp from certified forests, with few chemical additives.
WypAll
WypAll is a brand name for cleaning towels, wipes, and cloths. They are used in industrial settings and laboratories.
DryNites
DryNites are a version of GoodNites sold in Europe and Australasia.
