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Coca-Cola on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations, boosted by its efforts to globalize more of its brands.
During the quarter, the company launched its dairy-free smoothie brand AdeZ in Europe and debuted Coca-Cola Stevia No Sugar in New Zealand. It also brought its revamped Diet Coke campaign to Great Britain, following its previous launch in the U.S.
Here’s how the company did compared with Thomson Reuters estimates:
Earnings per share: 61 cents, adjusted, vs. 60 cents forecastRevenue: $8.90 billion vs. $8.54 billion forecastThe company reported net income of $2.32 billion, or 54 cents a share, up from earnings of $1.37 billion, or 32 cents a share, year ago.
After adjusting for continuing operations and other items, Coke said it earned 61 cents a share, which was a penny better than analysts were expecting, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.
Earnings from continuing operations rose 68 percent to 53 cents a share.
Coke said revenue fell 8 percent to $8.90 billion from the previous year, but sales surpassed expectations because the decline was anticipated as the company worked on refranchising its bottling operations. It said volume grew 2 percent, driven in part by double-digit growth for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.
Coke said second-quarter organic sales, which strips out the impact of currency, grew 5 percent. It clocked the strongest organic sales growth in Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America, with growth of 7 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
Those regions helped to counteract weakness North America, where Coke's organic sales dropped 1 percent.
