Gillette ranked No. 66 on Advertising Age's list of leading national advertisers in 2002. It had total U.S. ad spending of $495 million, up 6.8% over the previous year. In 2002, Gillette had U.S. sales of $3.76 billion, up 1.1% over the year earlier, and operating income of $952 million, up 78.6%. Gillette had worldwide sales of $8.45 billion in 2002, up 4.6%.
In January 2005, Procter & Gamble Co. announced that it planned to acquire Gillette for $57 billion in stock in a move that would allow it to leapfrog Unilever as the world's largest consumer products company and put it ahead of General Motors Corp. as the top U.S. advertising spender. The deal was expected to close in six to nine months.