Coca-Cola, the world's biggest soft-drink maker today reported a 10 per cent rise in first-quarter profit, helped partly by higher pricing, but sales were flat despite increased innovation.
The Atlanta-based company, which rolled out a flurry of new products last year and has kept up the tempo in 2006, reported first-quarter earnings of $1.1 billion, or 47 cents a share, from $1 billion, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding impairment charges related to bottling operations in Asia, quarterly earnings were 49 cents a share, 1 cent above analysts' average estimates according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue for the first quarter was flat at $5.2 billion and was slightly below Wall Street expectations for revenue at $5.3 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
The company posted a 5 per cent rise in unit case volume, a key sales measure in the beverage industry, led by continued strong growth in key emerging markets, including China, Russia, Brazil and Turkey.
While carbonated beverages posted a 3 per cent gain in unit case volumes, noncarbonated beverages saw nearly four times as much growth at 11 per cent.
Bottlers and soft-drink companies are trying hard to woo consumers, who are moving away from sugary soft drinks to diet versions or to healthier low- or no-calorie beverages such as water and orange juice with reduced sugar.
While soft-drink volume sales fell for the first time in two decades in 2005, energy drinks posted strong growth, according to a recent report by industry newsletter Beverage Digest.
Coke shares are up 2.4 per cent so far this year and trade at nearly 18 times expected 2006 earnings, while rival Pepsi is down 1.7 per cent with a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.7.