Beverages giant Coca-Cola Co. (KO) is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter results before the market opens Tuesday. On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of $0.67 per share for the quarter with revenue estimate of $7.21 billion.
In the year-ago fourth quarter, Atlanta, Georgia-based Coca-Cola earned $0.43 per share on a reported basis and $0.64 per share on an adjusted basis, on revenues of $7.13 billion.
Coca-Cola, a Dow component, manufactures nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and principally offers sparkling and still beverages. The company markets its nonalcoholic beverages under the Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite brand names.
Foreign currency fluctuations are very much important for Coca-Cola, as about 85% of its profit is reportedly from sales in foreign countries. In addition, the ongoing trend in the current market, with consumers continuing to favor healthier juices and teas rather than soft drinks, is a concern for the company.
At a two-day investor and analyst event held in Atlanta in November 2009, Coca-Cola provided a roadmap for more than doubling its system revenue by 2020 while increasing systems margins. In the meeting, the company's senior management, along with select bottling system leaders discussed key goals, including more than doubling servings to over three billion a day by 2020 and becoming No.1 in the nonalcoholic ready-to-drink business in every market and every category that is of value to the company.
"To target aging and affluent consumers globally, we are actively exploring new ingredients, new functionality and new occasions. At the same time, we are creating new strategies that are winning over a massive new generation of teens to drive growth of Trademark Coca-Cola," Muhtar Kent, chairman and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola said in the event.
In the preceding third quarter, the beverages giant reported a profit that was flat with the year-ago period due to poor operational performance across all its businesses. Net income for the third quarter was $1.90 billion or $0.81 per share. The company's net operating revenues declined 4% to $8.04 billion from $8.39 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Worldwide unit volumes grew 2% in the third quarter, helped by international operations primarily in India and China. However, a stronger dollar offset the company's strength in international operations.
Coca-Cola then said its productivity initiatives remain well on track to achieve $500 million target in annualized savings by year-end 2011, and expects to deliver more than half of the savings by the end of 2009.
In December 2009, Coca-Cola and its rival PepsiCo's (PEP) unit Stokely-Van Camp, Inc. reached an agreement to end the litigation initiated by Stokely-Van Camp over Coke's Powerade Ion4's advertising campaign. Powerade is a sports drink manufactured by Coca-Cola, and its main competitor is Gatorade, a flavored non-carbonated sports drink manufactured by Stokely-Van Camp.
PepsiCo is slated to release its fourth-quarter results on February 11. Wall Street analysts project December quarter earnings of $0.91 per share on revenues of $13.27 billion.
PepsiCo recently announced an agreement with another non-alcoholic beverage company Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (DPS) to manufacture and distribute certain Dr Pepper products following its acquisition of two anchor bottlers, Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. (PBG) and PepsiAmericas Inc. (PAS). PepsiCo has revised its outlook for fiscal 2009, while reaffirming its forecast for fiscal 2010.
Dr Pepper Snapple, meanwhile, is expected to earn $0.43 per share in the fourth quarter on revenues of $1.40 billion.
KO closed Monday at $52.65, up $0.44, on a volume of 8.36 million shares. For the 52-week period, the company's shares traded in a range of $37.44 - $59.45.
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June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.