Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) has stayed steady on its 2025 guidance after the release of its first quarter earnings report.
The soft drink giant came out ahead of Wall Street’s estimates for both earnings and revenue, but net sales dropped by 2% to US$11.13 billion.
Earnings per share landed at 73 cents adjusted compared to the 71 cents expected, and revenue totalled US$11.22 billion adjusted against the US$11.14 billion expected.
Revenue came in line year on year, operating margin was 32.9%, up from 19.1% from the same time last year, free cash flow was lower however by US$5.51 billion, down from $158 million year-on year.
Organic revenue and sales volumes rose 6% and 2% year on year respectively.
Choosing to largely reaffirm its guidance, Coca-Cola said it expected the impact of tariffs to be “manageable” as its operations are “primarily local”.
“One has to parse apart sentiment from behaviour, and therefore, it’s very important that we are not responding to sentiment, we’re responding to behaviour,” CEO James Quincey said on the company’s conference call after the report was released.
“You can see the consumer sentiment has been impacted, [but] the consumer spending ... still seems robust.”
At the time of reporting, Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO) was trading at US$72.35, up by 0.84%, with a market cap of approximately $311.36 billion.
