Currency exchange rates once again cost the company 2% on comparable net revenues and 5% on operating income for the quarter. On a constant currency basis, third-quarter operating income rose 8%. The currency impact was greater than the company’s reported impacts in the first two quarters of the fiscal year.
The company did not include guidance in its press release this morning, but the consensus estimates for the fourth quarter call for EPS of $0.47 on revenues of $11.37 billion. For the full year, EPS is estimated at $2.10 on revenues of $47.34 billion. Both quarterly and full-year estimates have dropped since Coca-Cola reported second-quarter earnings in July.
The company’s CEO said:
We delivered sound third quarter results in the confines of an ongoing challenged macroeconomic environment driven by increasing volatility across emerging markets. … While we saw sequential improvement in the business compared to the second quarter, together with our global bottling partners, we remain constructively discontent and resolutely focused on further advancing our growth trajectory.
Worldwide the company’s volume grew 2% and is up 2% for the first nine months of 2013. That is actually up from 1% volume growth in the second quarter and down from 3% growth in the first six months of the year. The company is really just spinning its wheels.
Coca-Cola’s shares are up about 1.6% in premarket trading, at $37.91 in a 52-week range of $35.58 to $43.43. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $44.50 before this report. The company’s 52-week range is unchanged since the end of the second quarter, and the price target has dropped by nearly $2.00 a share.
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