Coca-Cola Increases Earnings Through Strong International Sales

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) (Atlanta, Georgia) released its earnings report for the third quarter of 2008, which ended September 26. Largely because of increased international sales, Coca-Cola's earnings showed a healthy growth. "We are clearly in uncharted territory in these global markets, and we continue to calibrate and recalibrate the actions we need to take to continue delivering strong results," said Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola's President and CEO. Total revenue increased 9% to $8.39 billion from $7.69 billion in the third quarter of 2007. Net income increased 14%, coming in at $1.89 billion.

Although sales volumes in North America fell 2%, total unit-case volume sales increased 5% globally, with international unit-case sales increasing 7%. "Most key emerging markets delivered solid growth," Kent said. Sales in China, where Coca-Cola participated in significant sponsorship of this year's Olympics, increased 7%. Sales in India increased 18%, while sales in Brazil and Mexico both increased 7%. Kent said that other countries, including Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria and Korea, had also shown strong sales results. The company, however, appears to be taking a realistic and conservative look toward the fourth quarter. "We expect fourth quarter volume to trail the year-to-date trend due to the continued impacts of the economic slowdown and bottler pricing actions," said Kent.

Industrial Info is currently monitoring more than $62 million of projects of The Coca-Cola Company and an additional $260 million of active projects for 11 of Coca-Cola's associated independently owned and operated bottling companies. Coca-Cola North America, a division of The Coca-Cola Company, is currently adding a hot-fill production line to its plant in Waco, Texas, in order to increase the plant's capacity of still (noncarbonated) beverages, including the popular PowerAde and Vitamin Water brands. The project is costing an estimated $29 million and is scheduled to be complete in January 2009.

Of the independent bottlers, the largest project belongs to the Baton Rouge Coca-Cola Bottling Company. The company is currently constructing a grassroot bottling facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to replace its existing facility about 15 miles away. Estimated value of the project is $130 million.

For information on these and other projects, visit Industrial Info's North American Industrial Database, covering more than 8,200 active projects and 41,000 operational plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

View Plant Profile - 1027068 1072193
View Project Report - 01012335 02006153 02006573

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.