(Reuters) -Bottler Coca-Cola HBC beat half-year profit expectations and lifted its annual revenue target on Wednesday, supported by strong sales and higher prices of its drinks.
Demand for packaged food and beverages has so far stayed resilient despite the cost-of-living crisis, even as companies hiked prices of their products to pass on high energy and input costs to consumers.
The Switzerland-based company, of which U.S. beverage giant Coca-Cola owns 20%, forecast organic revenue growth in a mid-teens percentage for the full year, compared with its prior guidance of 5-6%.
“While some markets continue to face a challenging consumer environment, revenue per case has been improved through careful price and mix management enhanced by data, insights and analytics,” CEO Zoran Bogdanovic said in a statement.
Organic net sales revenue per case expanded by 19.0%, beating analysts’ forecast of 17.4% in a poll compiled by the company.
HBC, which was founded in Nigeria in 1951, said volumes in the country declined by a low-single digit percentage due to temporary lack of availability of local currency.
It still expects the negative impact from foreign currency exchange on the group’s comparable operating profit to be between 50 million and 60 million euros ($55 million and $66 million) this year.
Diageo’s finance chief said last week that the dip in the world’s biggest spirits maker’s annual sales volumes was largely related to its East African business, where it had raised prices to keep up with inflation and currency devaluations.
HBC reported a comparable operating profit of 560.7 million euros for the six months through June, up 21.2% from a year earlier. Analysts had expected a profit of about 521.5 million euros.
Profit outlook, which the company had raised last month, remained unchanged.
($1 = 0.9118 euros)
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Milla Nissi)
