Coca-Cola last night reported a 24 per cent drop in third-quarter net income due to weak sales of its soft drinks, juices and bottled waters in Germany, North America and other key markets.
The world's largest soft drink maker, led by a new chief executive and a restructured management team, blamed a variety of factors, including poor weather in North America and regulatory changes in Europe, for the disappointing showing.
When one-time charges were excluded, Coca-Cola's earnings were above what analysts had been told to expect in September when the company surprised Wall Street with a sober profit warning.
Coca-Cola executives said they expected business in many of the company's more than 200 markets around the world to be challenging in the fourth quarter.
Coca-Cola expects to earn between $1.88 per share and $1.90 per share in 2004, within the range it gave last month.
In the three months ended September 30th, Coca-Cola earned $935 million, or 39 cents a share, which included 11 cents per share in noncash charges related to a new deposit law and tax matters in Germany.
That compared with a profit of $1.22 billion, or 50 cents a share, in the same period in 2003. Third-quarter revenue dipped to $5.66 billion from $5.67 billion.
Analysts, who sharply cut their earnings forecasts after the recent profit warning, had on average expected earnings of 47 cents a share on sales of $5.65 billion, according to Reuters Estimates, a unit of Reuters Group.