Financial results released on Friday (April 17) reveal net sales of $17.2 billion (£13.6 billion/€15.65 billion) for the first three months of this calendar year, a year-on-year increase of five per cent, or six per cent once the impacts of foreign exchange fluctuations and businesses that were bought or sold in the relevant periods are stripped out.

Organic sales growth was strongest, at nine to 10 per cent, in the company's fabric and home care and health care business segments.

By contrast, beauty sales grew only weakly and grooming sales dipped, as millions of people across the world's biggest national economies were confined largely to their homes.

"The strong results we delivered this quarter are a direct reflection of the integral role our products play in meeting the daily health, hygiene and cleaning needs of consumers around the world," said David Taylor, the company's chairman, President and chief executive.

"Our organisation has been doing a terrific job against our near-term priorities – protecting the health and safety of each other, maximising the availability of P&G products to meet heightened consumer need and helping society meet and overcome the challenges of this crisis."

In Olympic terms, P&G – whose brands include Tide detergent, Pampers nappies and Gillette shaving products – is best-known for its "Thank you, Mom" campaigns, focusing on the mothers of Olympic athletes.

P&G joined the IOC's The Olympic Partner (TOP) worldwide sponsorship programme in 2010, agreeing a 10-year deal.

Its improved performance comes at a time when many are worried about the crisis's impact on hitherto buoyant sports sponsorship markets, owing to the number of companies hit hard by the sharp economic downturn.

Separately, Alibaba, another TOP sponsor, has announced a mammoth CNY200 billion (£22 billion/$28 billion/€25.5 billion) three-year cloud computing investment plan.

The coronavirus crisis is also fuelling demand for internet infrastructure as organisations adjust to the need for swaths of employees to work from home for an indeterminate period. 

The Chinese e-commerce giant joined the TOP programme in 2017 and includes "cloud services" in its TOP product categories.

Prior to the lockdown in January, Chris Tung, the Alibaba Group's chief marketing officer, told insidethegames about the company's plans to apply cloud technologies to the Olympic sphere in an extended interview.