Soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC has reported higher-than-expected half-year revenue, helped by warm weather across Europe and the World Cup soccer tournament.
The bottler of Coca-Cola drinks said net revenue was €3.23 billion in the first half of the year, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates for €3.22 billion, according to Jefferies analysts.
That represented a jump of 6.4% on a currency-neutral basis, but including currency fluctuations, revenue was up only 0.5%.
Comparable earnings per share of 60 euro cents missed analysts' estimates of 61 cents, Jefferies analysts said, citing higher finance costs mainly due to lower interest returns on cash deposits.
Sales And Growth
Sales volume, or the amount of drinks sold, lifted sales by 4.6%, while the remaining 1.8 percentage points of sales growth was due to higher prices and a pricier mix of drinks sold.
Growth was mainly driven by emerging and developing markets.
The company said it continued to make "good progress" against its 2020 targets and expects to deliver "another year of revenue growth and improvement in margins".
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