Volume and price are rising! Coca Cola (KO.US) Q3 revenue exceeded expectations, raising full-year profit guidelines

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Coca Cola (KO.US) released pre-market results for the third quarter of 2026 on October 27 (three months ending October 2): net revenue of $13.4 billion, up 7% year over year, higher than the LSEG survey's agreed analysts' expectations of $12.92 billion, exceeding $470 million; comparable earnings per share (non-GAAP) of $0.91, up 11% year over year. At the same time, the year-round EPS growth guide was increased by at least 11%.

Third-quarter operating profit increased 12% year over year, and GAAP operating margin rose to 33.4% from 32.0% in the same period last year. Organic sales increased 7%, global single box sales increased by 5%, and price and combination increased by 1%; sales of concentrates increased 7%, 2 percentage points higher than the single-box sales growth rate. The company explained that this gap was due to changes in delivery time rather than terminal demand.

The real increase is in the guide: organic revenue for the whole year was changed from “about 5% increase” to “at least 5% increase”; the comparable earnings per share growth rate was raised from “9% to 10%” to “at least 11%” (including about 3 percentage points favorable exchange rate and about 1 percentage point merger and divestiture headwind); the comparable neutral exchange rate earnings per share growth rate (excluding mergers and acquisitions) was raised from “7% to 8%” to “at least 9%”; the free cash flow guideline was raised from about US$12.4 billion to at least US$13 billion, of which operating cash flow was raised from about 146 billion US dollars The billion US dollars rose to At least $152 billion.

By region, net revenue in Latin America increased by 25% in the third quarter, only 3% in North America, and 4% each in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. CEO Henrique Braun said in a press release that the quarterly results reflect the continued momentum of the company's systems and gave management confidence in the updated full-year guidance.

As of press release, the company's pre-market stock price was low after the financial report was released; the company closed at $93.81 on the previous trading day (October 26), rising about 32% during the year, outperforming the S&P 500 by about 12 percentage points during the same period, with a market value of about $398 billion.