Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
We have a question from Wendy Nicholson of Citi Investment. Your line is open.
Wendy Nicholson - Citi Investment
Hi.
Jim Marino
Hi, Wendy.
Wendy Nicholson - Citi Investment
How are you?
Jim Marino
Good. Yourself?
Wendy Nicholson - Citi Investment
I'm fine, thank you. Just as we look out towards 2009, the color you gave us on the gross margin was helpful. But if we can back up and look at the revenue line, kind of what you're thinking about for the full year 2009, what's a reasonable base case to think about from a local currency growth perspective.
And then, can you just highlight for us other than the comps which we know for the last four quarters, but in term of whether it's new products or new products or new markets that you are planning to go into with either TRESemme or Nexxus, is there anything that's going to particularly make 2009 uneven from a reported revenue growth perspective?
Jim Marino
Okay, let me see if I can tackle all of that, Wendy. First of all, in terms of overall sales growth, I mean historically, we have been saying that we expect to grow our topline, mid single digit. We're not backing off of that at this point. We still think that remains reasonable with respect to organic growth.
The caution would always be, you know, in some quarters, we are going to be maybe in the low end to below that. In some quarters, we are going to be in high end and above that, depending on our activity, both with respect to our brands and our markets.
So, I just like to caution you on that on a quarter-to-quarter basis. But as we look at '09 and beyond, mid-single percentage growth organically still remains a pretty good estimate. In terms of results being uneven, they are always going to be bit uneven as you've seen this past year. I don't think that's going to change.
We have several new initiatives in fiscal year '09, that will inevitably impact growth from quarter-to-quarter and we'll also be anniversary-ing some things that we did in '08 that will impact our business on a quarter-to-quarter business.
But, overall, we're still bullish. We still think the way we look at the business is direct, the correct way to look at a business. And we feel pretty good about '09, despite the fact that we're in, probably, the worst economic situation that this country and many other countries around the world have been in the long, long, long time.
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