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By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Coca-Cola stock (NYSE:KO) rose 1.4% in premarket Thursday after the beverage giant used price hikes and strong consumer demand to beat fourth-quarter estimates.
Reopening of theatres, parks and entertainment centers enabled a 10% year-on-year jump in quarterly revenue to $9.5 billion, despite the quarter having six fewer days in the company’s books. The company said it was the first quarter in which away-from-home volume was ahead of 2019 numbers. Concentrate sales fell 1%.
Price were 10% higher while volumes rose 9%. Adjusted operating margin took a hit of 5.2 percentage points to 22.1% because of higher marketing costs. Six fewer days of operations in the quarter put pressure on the topline and also hurt margins.
The company claimed higher value share in the total non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage market.
Growth in developing and emerging markets was led by China, India and Russia, while U.S., Mexico and U.K. dominated the growth in developed markets.
The company expects adjusted organic revenue to grow 7%-8% compared to 16% growth in 2021.
Coca-Cola returned $7.3 billion to shareholders in 2021 through dividends while not repurchasing any share under an existing $10 billion program. It didn’t declare any new dividend.
Compared to that, rival PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) has raised its dividend by 7% while revealing a new $10 billion repurchase program. The Frito Lay-maker returned $7.7 billion to shareholders in 2021 through dividends and repurchases.
