Coca-Cola profit falls 55 percent, but beats expectations

10-Feb-2017 - USA

Coca-Cola's profit fell 55 percent in the most recent quarter, as the world's biggest beverage maker continues to restructure its business.

The company, which Fanta, Sprite and Smartwater, is in the process of selling off its bottling businesses to independent companies that will bottle its sodas and other drinks. Instead of bottling, Coca-Cola is focusing on marketing its brands and selling syrups and concentrates to the bottlers. The change means less revenue for Coca-Cola, but fewer costs.

Coca-Cola earned $550 million, or 13 cents per share, for the three months ending Dec. 31. A year ago the Atlanta-based company earned $1.24 billion, or 28 cents per share.

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Earnings, adjusted for one-time costs and asset impairment costs, came to 37 cents per share. That's a penny better than what analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research anticipated.

Total revenue dropped to $9.41 billion from $10 billion, dragged down partly by a strong dollar, acquisitions and divestitures. Still, this managed to beat the $9.1 billion in revenue that analysts surveyed by Zacks were calling for.

Global sales volume dipped 1 percent, with a 4 percent drop in Latin America and 1 percent increases in both North America and Europe.

Shares of Coca-Cola Co. slipped nearly 2 percent to $41.23 in premarket trading Thursday.

Coca-Cola's No. 2 executive, James Quincey, is preparing to succeed CEO Muhtar Kent in May. Quincey is expected to oversee a critical period of transformation for Coke, which has also been cutting costs to please shareholders.

Rival PepsiCo Inc. will report its results next week.(dpa)

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