A man walks past shelves of Coca-Cola bottles and cans at a shopping mall in Lagos, Nigeria November 5, 2019.
Temilade Adelaja | Reuters
Coca-Cola is expected to report its fourth-quarter earnings before the bell Thursday.
Here’s what Wall Street analysts surveyed by Refinitiv are expecting:
- Earnings per share: 44 cents expected
- Revenue: $8.9 billion expected
As U.S. consumption of soda has fallen, Coke sales in recent quarters have gotten a boost from its healthier options, like Zero Sugar soda and smaller size cans.
Coke and rival PepsiCo are also looking to non-soda sales for a boost and expanding their legacy soda brands into new categories, like energy drinks. Coke, for example, launched Coke Energy in the U.S. earlier this month and will introduce its new flavored sparkling water line AHA in March. Coke is also expanding its Powerade brand with two new product lines.
A little more than a week ago, Coke CEO James Quincey told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that consumer spending is robust heading into 2020. Since then, the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus has accelerated, and companies like Starbucks and Apple expect it to hit their Chinese business. Investors will be watching to see if Coke will see negative impacts across its supply chain or to its sales.
Coke’s stock, which has a market value of $245 billion, rose 20% over the last 12 months. Its shares have lagged behind those of rival Pepsi, valued at $198 billion, which has seen its stock jump 30% in the same time. Pepsi will announce its fourth-quarter results on Feb. 13.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.