Coca-Cola HBC sales beat forecasts despite emerging-market FX drag

15th May 2015 07:10

Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), the second-largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world in terms of volume, beat forecasts slightly with an unexpected increase in first-quarter sales.CCH, which now only provides sales and volumes numbers for the first and third quarters and not P&L details, said net sales revenues totalled €1.353bn in the first three months of 2015, up 1.7% on last year from €1.331bn last year.According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the consensus forecast was €1.313bn.In spite of the deflationary pricing environment, established markets growth came in at 5.1% while developing markets improved by 11.4%.However, emerging markets revenues were down 4.6% as volume growth was offset by adverse currency movements.CCH said trading was in line with its own expectations and conditions across its markets had developed as anticipated.Nevertheless, the outlook was cautious with the company saying: "While there are some positive country-specific dynamics, continued volatility in currency and oil markets, political concerns in certain countries and the downward revision of global GDP growth by the IMF continue to provide an uncertain background."