By Theo Francis and Serena Ng 

The strong dollar is a given. The question now is whether American companies can raise prices enough to offset the damage without hurting sales.

So far, the answer isn't good.

Consumer-goods giant Procter & Gamble Co. said Thursday that price increases to offset currency issues in developing countries had contributed to a 2% drop in sales volume in the quarter ended in March.

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co., maker of Enfamil formula, said declines in Latin American currencies outpaced the company's price increases, contributing to a 2% drop in overall sales from a year ago.

For McDonald's Corp., a 2% price increase in both the U.S. and in Europe outside Russia wasn't enough to keep the dollar's rise from cutting revenue by $700 million and earnings by 9 cents a share in the first quarter. Executives forecast more pain from the currency fluctuations for the rest of the year.

"It's hard to get ahead of a very strong dollar," Greg Hayes, chief executive of industrial conglomerate United Technologies Corp., said in an interview this week.

The stronger dollar reduces the value of sales earned in foreign currencies such as the euro or the Brazilian real when those revenues are converted back into dollars. That dynamic has stung a range of companies--from General Motors Co. and General Electric Co. to Facebook Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. Since the beginning of the year, the euro has dropped more than 10% against the dollar, while the pound has fallen more than 3%, following sharp declines late last year.

P&G said sales in the first three months were down 8% from a year earlier. If it hadn't been for currency issues, they would have been flat. At Coca-Cola Co., a 7% rise in sales shrank to a 1% gain after the impact of the stronger dollar was accounted for. 3M Co. lowered its earnings forecast for the year after a stronger dollar reduced first-quarter sales by 6.5%, leaving them down 3.2% overall.

The dollar's impact comes amid improving earnings and sales for big companies that aren't in the oil-and-gas business. With about a third of the S&P 500 reporting results, earnings are forecast to rise 6.9% excluding energy companies, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenues, meanwhile, are forecast to rise 2.5% on that basis.

For some companies, currency effects meant the difference between sales growing and shrinking: 5% growth became a 4% decline at Kimberly-Clark Corp., thanks to currency. At United Technologies, 3% sales growth became a 1% decline. And Mead Johnson saw a 3% sales increase become a 2% drop once currency fluctuation was taken into account.

Tech companies reporting earnings Thursday also cited currency woes.

Google Inc. said the dollar's strength reduced the quarter's revenue growth to 12% year-over-year from 17% without currency effects. Facebook, which generates more than half its revenues overseas, said the stronger dollar reduced revenue by nearly $200 million, and Microsoft Corp. predicted the strong dollar would continue to slow its revenue growth.

And other companies also expect currency to remain a significant drag through the year. Pharmaceutical maker Baxter International Inc. said second-quarter sales are likely to grow 1% excluding currency effects--but decline 9% to 10% including them, even without further strengthening of the dollar. United Technologies expects foreign-exchange pressure to weigh on its sales and profit from regions such as Europe for the rest of the year.

Companies have other levers to pull as the dollar value of their overseas earnings falls. P&G is planning more cost cuts, including slashing its spending on marketing agencies. The company has been shifting more of its advertising to digital channels, which already account for more than 30% of the total, and is now looking to cull the number of advertising agencies it uses in an effort to save half a billion dollars.

PepsiCo, meantime, said it is seeking to cut costs as well as to move more production costs to overseas markets as currency effects are poised to reduce profit in Europe. The company says it generally tries to recover 75% of currency effects through price increases and make up the rest with cost cuts.

"The challenge is to balance volume and revenue," said Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi. So far, executives say, demand is largely withstanding the price changes Pepsi has imposed in some markets, including Russia. Pepsi warned currency weakness could hit its profit by 11 percentage points this year. Revenue fell 3.2% in the first quarter, while profit was flat.

The decision to raise prices can be complicated, requiring an assessment of what customers can bear and what rivals will do.

Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. said it sought to offset currency losses by increasing prices in targeted markets, including Japan, where it has few domestic competitors that are insulated from currency effects.

DuPont Co. said price increases for its agricultural products increased the segment's revenue by 3%, in part to offset weakening currencies in Europe and Asia. But currency fluctuations overwhelmed those price increases, contributing to a 10% overall decline in revenue for the segment.

In a Tuesday earnings call with analysts, CEO Ellen Kullman said DuPont employees are reanalyzing pricing strategy based on currency movements, recognizing that it is typically harder to raise prices when facing off against a local competitor as opposed to other foreign producers that also deal with currency challenges.

"And each individual product line, each individual president is driving the appropriate actions for their sector based on that--where we make versus where the competitors make," Ms. Kullman said on the call.

Write to Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com and Serena Ng at serena.ng@wsj.com

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