Coca-Cola Backs FY24 Comparable Earnings View After Weak Q3 Results; Stock Dips

(RTTNews) - Beverages giant Coca-Cola Co. (KO) on Wednesday maintained its fiscal 2024 growth forecast for comparable earnings, while lifted outlook for growth in comparable currency neutral earnings per share and organic revenue. This was after reporting weak earnings in its third quarter with slightly lower revenues.

In pre-market activity on the NYSE, Coca-Cola shares were losing around 2.9 percent to trade at $67.46.

For fiscal 2024, the company continues to expect comparable earnings per share growth of 5 percent to 6 percent from last year's $2.69.

Further, Coca-Cola now expects comparable currency neutral earnings per share growth of 14 percent to 15 percent, compared to previous outlook of a growth of 13 percent to 15 percent.

Coca-Cola now expects to deliver organic revenue growth of approximately 10 percent, compared to previous outlook of organic revenue growth of 9 percent to 10 percent.

The latest outlook reflects operating performance at the high end of the company's long-term growth model and the anticipated pricing impact of a number of markets experiencing intense inflation.

Analysts on average expect the company to report earnings of $2.85 per share on revenue growth of 8.30 percent, according to figures compiled by Thomson Reuters. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

In its third quarter, Coca-Cola's net income attributable to Shareowners came in at $2.848 billion, or $0.66 per share, down 8 percent from $3.087 billion or $0.71 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings were $3.347 billion or $0.77 per share for the period, compared to $3.205 billion or $0.74 per share a year ago.

The company's revenue for the quarter fell 0.8 percent to $11.854 billion from $11.953 billion last year.

The Street was looking for earnings of $0.74 per share on revenues of $11.60 billion for the quarter.

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