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3M’s output of latest product launches tumbled within the years earlier than CEO Invoice Brown took the helm.
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Brown set a method of boosting new product launches, and the outcomes have been spectacular.
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In 2025, 3M launched twice as many new merchandise in comparison with 2023, and one other enhance is deliberate for 2026.
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In August 2024, 3M (NYSE: MMM) CEO Invoice Brown identified one of many industrial big’s core issues only a few months after taking the helm. A years-long slide in innovation, as measured by new product launches, was crippling the corporate’s progress engine. “The straightforward truth is that our merchandise are growing old,” Brown mentioned throughout a convention name.
Prior to now, 3M was a prolific innovator, launching at the least 1,000 new merchandise annually. Whereas the corporate’s secure of time-tested merchandise is necessary to its success, you do not discover the subsequent blockbuster product until you strive quite a lot of new issues. By 2024, 3M had largely given up, launching fewer than 170 new merchandise that 12 months.
Whereas 3M nonetheless has work to do, the corporate efficiently restarted its innovation engine in 2025 and plans to rev it up additional in 2026.
Throughout the fourth-quarter earnings name on Tuesday morning, Brown disclosed that 3M launched 284 new merchandise in 2025. That is up 68% from 2024 and greater than double the variety of new product launches in 2023. What’s extra, the corporate is concentrating on 350 new product launches in 2026, a 23% enhance from 2025. “These new merchandise are important for our long-term progress and are already contributing to our high line,” Brown mentioned.
3M was concentrating on a high-teens proportion of income from merchandise that launched up to now 5 years, however the firm blew previous that concentrate on in 2025. For the complete 12 months, these newer merchandise accounted for 23% of whole income, and that proportion shot as much as 44% as the corporate exited the fourth quarter.
General natural gross sales grew by simply 2.2% within the fourth quarter, however new product launches have been a key driver that offset softness in sure shopper, roofing, and auto markets. For 2026, the corporate expects adjusted natural gross sales progress of roughly 3%. A $3.5 billion funding in analysis and improvement over a three-year interval ending in 2027 will help the corporate’s new product launches and assist drive improved natural gross sales progress.
Whereas 3M is fixing certainly one of its core issues by ratcheting up the tempo of innovation, different dangers stay. The macroeconomic surroundings continues to stress demand in a number of the firm’s companies, and the prospect of extra tariffs associated to tensions between the U.S. and Europe may damage the underside line.