Coca-Cola, the US soft drink maker, reported higher-than-expected first-quarter revenue and profit on Monday, as its after-tax earnings for the three months ending in March increased 12% to $3.107 billion, or 72 cents per share. From $2.781 billion a share a year ago, it was 64 cents.
In the first three months of the year, the company’s earnings per share without one-time items rose from 64 cents to 68 cents in a year-over-year comparison. In the first quarter, Coca-Cola revenue increased 5 percent to $10.98 billion year over year. Analysts had expected lower earnings per share excluding non-recurring items of 64 cents and lower revenue of $10.8 billion.
The preferred outcome is due to an 11 percent increase in average sales prices and a 3 percent increase in sales volume.
Coca-Cola raises its prices in part because of higher raw material costs, but demand has proven stable despite the higher prices. According to the analytics, the boom in Chinese sales also contributed to the better-than-expected quarterly data.
Growth can remain
In the first quarter of this year, Coca-Cola revenue increased 9 percent in North America, 14 percent in Latin America, 10 percent in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), and decreased 3 percent in Asia- Pacific region.
The company confirmed its previous forecast for 2023, according to which it expected organic revenue growth between 7 and 8 percent.
MTI concluded that Coca-Cola stock rose 1.75 percent in pre-opening trading at around 3:00 p.m.
This was answered by Barnabas Virag, Vice President of MNB and Tibor Toth, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Finance, as well as many other high-level financial experts at the Napi.Gazdaság conference. Learn more about the conference!
