Coca-Cola sales drop in Europe

Quarterly mixed results for Coca-Cola. The US giant of the most popular beverage in the world reported in the first three months of the year net income of $ 1.48 billion ($ 0.34 per share), down from 1.56 billion ($ 0.35 per share), in the corresponding period of 2015. Excluding exceptional items, net income amounted to $ 0.45 per share, above analyst estimates steady at $ 0.44. Slightly below expectations however the revenues were down 4% to 10.28 billion dollars (consensus 10.30 billion). For the entire 2016, Coca-Cola expects revenue growth of 4-5% and 4-6 percent growth in earnings per share on a constant-currency basis.

In the slipstream of the quarterly, the title marks in Wall Street a decrease of 1.3% pre-market session.
Coke, Which has a target of $ 3 billion annual cost savings by 2019, said selling, general and administrative expenses declined nearly 8 percent.

Europe sales, the third most important market, fell of 1% in the first quarter, due to the strong dollar and weak demand in Brazil pulled down Latin American sales by 12.2%.