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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-05CCEP (CCEP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
Motley Fool
CCEP (CCEP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
Image source: The Motley Fool. Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. ET Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy - Sarah Willett Chief Executive Officer - Damian Gammell Chief Financial Officer - Ed Walker Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Half Year 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead, Sarah. Sarah Willett: Thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Damian Gammell, our CEO; and our CFO, Ed Walker. First, a reminder of our cautionary statements. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today's release as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian. We will then turn the call over to your questions. Unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and FX-neutral basis throughout. Volume movements, unless otherwise stated, adjust for the impact of 6 more consumption days in the half when compared to the same period last year. Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. You will see on the first slide of the presentation, a picture of one of the limited edition 2 million Campeones champion gold cans to celebrate our Spanish market winning the World Cup. So on that note, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian, who found one of these cans selling online for EUR 20. Damian Gammell: Thank you, Sarah. I didn't buy it, but thank you, and thank you all for joining. We delivered a strong first half, and I really want to start by thanking our colleagues for their focus, hard work and continued dedication to CCEP and most importantly, to our customers. Our people and our strong brand partnerships continue to drive us forward. We've seen broad-based growth across markets and categories, continued share gains, robust profit delivery an…Read full documentShow less
Image source: The Motley Fool. Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. ET Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy - Sarah Willett Chief Executive Officer - Damian Gammell Chief Financial Officer - Ed Walker Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Half Year 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead, Sarah. Sarah Willett: Thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Damian Gammell, our CEO; and our CFO, Ed Walker. First, a reminder of our cautionary statements. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today's release as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian. We will then turn the call over to your questions. Unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and FX-neutral basis throughout. Volume movements, unless otherwise stated, adjust for the impact of 6 more consumption days in the half when compared to the same period last year. Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. You will see on the first slide of the presentation, a picture of one of the limited edition 2 million Campeones champion gold cans to celebrate our Spanish market winning the World Cup. So on that note, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian, who found one of these cans selling online for EUR 20. Damian Gammell: Thank you, Sarah. I didn't buy it, but thank you, and thank you all for joining. We delivered a strong first half, and I really want to start by thanking our colleagues for their focus, hard work and continued dedication to CCEP and most importantly, to our customers. Our people and our strong brand partnerships continue to drive us forward. We've seen broad-based growth across markets and categories, continued share gains, robust profit delivery and strong cash generation. Our value creation strategy is working. We are creating value for our customers. We are a consistent top and bottom line compounder. We are generating significant cash, which is supporting record investment behind future growth, and we are increasing our returns to shareholders. Looking back over the past 3 years, we have generated $4.4 billion of value for our retail customers and returned $4.3 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. We operate in large, attractive and a growing beverage market. NARTD is a $180 billion category globally and is expected to grow 3% to 4% annually through to 2030. We are well positioned in the fast-growing categories and across a diverse channel and geographic footprint, including particularly attractive long-term opportunities in Southeast Asia. Looking now at our results, the business continues to perform well. We're pleased to have delivered a strong first half with balanced top line growth across our markets, continued share gains and robust profit delivery. We're executing well and innovating at pace, focusing on the categories where consumers are most engaged, including zero sugar, energy, sports and hydration. As a result, we continue to lead value creation for our customers. We're staying disciplined on costs with our productivity mindset and efficiency programs continuing to support profit expansion, strong free cash flow and investment in our brands, supply chain, technology and our people, also enabling us to grow our shareholder returns. We have laid strong foundations through our commercial plans, our innovation pipeline, our in-market execution and the ongoing development of our strategic capabilities. We are confident in reaffirming our guidance for this year and in the longer-term opportunity ahead. Turning now to the key metrics. You can see a well-balanced performance across the business. Revenue grew strongly with great execution across our markets, positive revenue per case and strong growth in volumes, particularly in Q2, despite Easter falling into Q1 this year. June was actually our biggest volume month ever. We also grew value share by 20 basis points, driven by gains in Europe. Our customer relationships remain a real source of competitive advantage. We continue to maintain high service levels, and we're proud to remain the #1 retail value creator, which is important because creating value for our customers is central to how we will grow sustainably. Operating profit reflects the quality of our top line as we benefited from stronger volumes as well as disciplined cost management and our ongoing productivity agenda. Cash generation remains a core strength of CCEP. We delivered strong comparable free cash flow in the first half and continue to invest behind future growth while also returning cash to shareholders through our dividend and our share buyback program. So overall, the first half demonstrates the strength of our model. We are growing, investing, improving productivity and growing shareholder returns, all within a disciplined framework. We delivered revenue of EUR 10.7 billion, an increase of 6.1%, with volumes growing 5.6% or 2.2% on a days adjusted basis, with volume growth in both Europe and APS. Revenue per case grew 0.4% against a strong comparative of almost 4% growth in the first half of last year. Headline price increases, promotional optimization and positive mix benefits from the growth of energy and more coolers were partially offset by the growth of larger volume formats in Europe. In addition, we also faced a headwind from the Suntory alcohol exit in APS, and this is worth just over 1% of total revenue during the first half. In fact, in Australia Pacific, revenue, excluding alcohol, grew a really healthy 10%. Cost of sales per unit case increased by 0.6%, lower than our full year guidance of 1.5%, and this largely reflects both a higher half 1 comparable of 3.6% last year and with much of the absorption of the ongoing uncertain situation in the Middle East still to land in half 2. OpEx as a percentage of revenue was 21.4%, an improvement of around 40 basis points, supported by savings on discretionary spend and continued productivity gains. The combination of these factors drove operating profit of EUR 1.5 billion, up 8.1% with an operating margin of 13.8%, up around 30 basis points on last year. Diluted earnings per share of EUR 2.20 was up 10.6%, supported by the share buyback with around EUR 600 million of the full year EUR 1 billion now completed. And finally, free cash flow of EUR 435 million was slightly ahead of last year. This was after investing in key projects, including more coolers, a new warmfill line for Powerade in Australia, new can fillers in Sweden and the development of our exciting greenfield site, Manila, which is on schedule to begin production next year. We do remain on track to deliver comparable free cash flow of at least EUR 1.7 billion for the year. Our performance in the first half and the solid start to the second reinforces our confidence in the outlook for the full year, notwithstanding 6 fewer trading days in the second half. So today, we're reaffirming all elements of our full year '26 guidance. And our '26 guidance is in line with our midterm objectives with a quick reminder of those here. Our performance and the continued delivery of these midterm objectives come back to the execution of our focused and consistent strategy captured in these core priorities. Firstly, we're broadening our total portfolio, investing behind faster-growing categories and driving innovation across both established and emerging brands. We bring these brands to life in market with great execution, whether that's through impactful on-shelf, differentiated points of interruption, cooler placements or recent major activations such as the FIFA World Cup, to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. Enhancement of our revenue and margin growth management, investment in commercial capabilities and productivity improvements ensure we remain competitive. Our investments in the Philippines and Indonesia represent significant long-term opportunities to accelerate growth, and we're encouraged by the progress we're making in both markets. And we're unlocking growth through technology and AI. These investments are helping us to generate new growth opportunities across the business, improve decision-making, enhance customer service and increase our manufacturing efficiency. Our focus on these priorities is strengthening our business today and creating the foundations for growth and value creation for many years to come, and, of course, all done sustainably. Briefly on that, we recently updated our sustainability goals to include the Philippines, something we explored in our recent ESG webinar and available for replay on our website. So how are we getting on more broadly against these priorities? Our portfolio strategy is working. We're continuing to invest in the core whilst broadening our participation across faster-growing categories and occasions, including sports, energies and zeros, where we're seeing strong momentum, which I'll come back to shortly. We've seen a meaningful contribution to our growth from some great innovation in the first half. On our Coke trademark across Original Taste and Zeros, our new cherry variants, including Cherry Float and GB performed well. We continue to make good progress with small and more premium packs and the new 500 ml Supercans are proving to be a great success, especially with younger consumers. So watch this space for more to come. And we welcome the return to growth for Die Coke and GB, supported by the addition of Cherry and the collaboration with The Devil Wears Prada. Our flavors family has seen lots of exciting new introductions from Royal Grape and Lychee in the Philippines, the fantastic Nipis Mint in Indonesia and the fun new visual identity for Fanta with Xbox gaming graphics. We're strengthening our presence in sports and hydration with volumes up 12%. Aquarius continues to drive strong growth in Iberia, while Powerade grew double digit, supported by the FIFA activation. This brand has also been recently introduced to Indonesia, where the sports category is already half the size of sparkling. Energy continues to outperform with volumes up an incredible 19%. Monster growth is running at roughly twice the category rate. Our share was up 230 basis points, supported by innovations such as Viking Berry and strong activation around our motorsport partnerships with Oscar Piastri now featuring on the cans of Monster Green. Water is growing well, particularly in GB with Smartwater and in the Philippines with Wilkins. And we've made fantastic progress in coffee in Australia, where Grinders is now the #1 coffee bean brand in retail with sales of over AUD 100 million. The common theme here is choice, more brands, more packs, more flavors and more occasions focused on faster-growing categories. That's helping us recruit consumers, increase frequency and capture a greater share of the beverage spend. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen great momentum in the growth of Zeros everywhere, whether in Coke trademark, flavors with Sprite and Fanta, in hydration or in energy. Both Coke Zero caffeine, in its eye-catching -- caffeine-free in its eye-catching new black and gold packaging and Zero Chill Sprite with its refreshing blast of mint have delivered beyond our expectations with Sprite overall growing by 6%, supported by the fantastic Sprite & Spicy campaign. We've extended our range of Zero flavors in Fanta and are seeing good growth in both zero sugar sports through Powerade and Aquarius and in energy, where the Monster Ultra range was up over 50%. Overall, Zero Sugar volumes increased by 10%, and we expect strong growth going forward with innovation offering more choice for consumers as they increasingly seek out healthier but exciting and great tasting options. Execution is one of our most durable competitive advantages. And in half 1, we turned brand strength and innovation into visible, measurable marketplace impact. One example is our cooler rollout plan, which is running well ahead. We've added more than 80,000 coolers this year, an increase of 5%, more than 10% since last year when we began our accelerated program to expand cold availability and grow instant consumption, which supports mix. We're continuing to win with customers and listings across markets, including Smartwater and Fuze Tea in McDonald's in selected markets. Domino's was a significant recent win in Australia, with the GB team winning Parkdean Resorts, Papa John's and Leeds United. This expands our coverage of English Premiership grounds to 80% and makes Ed, our CFO, a proud Yorkshireman very happy. And we've seen a terrific win for the whole system with Marriott International, including over 600 hotels in our markets, and that will start rolling out during half 2. Beyond that, execution on our packaging collection progress continued. DRS has landed well in Portugal. We continue to prepare for GB next year, and we launched a cross-border recycling program across the Pacific Islands, all contributing to our decarbonization journey. And finally, we're bringing our brands to life through stronger activation, as you can see here on the Fanta and Xbox and of course, through FIFA World Cup, which I'm keen to touch on next. World Cup 2026 has been our biggest activation program ever, providing a great example of how we work with the Coca-Cola Company combining world-class assets with exceptional local execution at scale to create value for our customers and excitement for our consumers. We delivered more than 500,000 displays with our field teams continuing to build momentum as the tournament progressed. All of our top European Home customers executed a campaign covering more than 47,000 outlets. We activated exclusive Panini sticker on-pack promotions with 163 million packs and produced more than 135 million team and player cans. Importantly, it just wasn't about brand awareness. The activation supported transactions with more than 1.3 million FIFA items awarded to shoppers through the purchase of our brands. On to competitiveness. Sharpening competitiveness is not simply a cost agenda. It is about building a faster-moving business, one that is more efficient and more effective in serving our customers and consumers and one that can [indiscernible] and growing profitably. One important lever is revenue and margin growth management. We are continuing to use sharper insights, better promotional mechanics and stronger pricing tools to balance value for consumers with profitable growth for our customers and CCEP. That is particularly important in an environment where many consumers remain focused on value. Promotions are a good example. They're not only about headline price, but as examples here demonstrate, about great promotional mechanics, helping to drive higher incidence, whether that's through free meals in QSR, gifts with purchase or price-led campaigns for Fuze Tea and Coke Zero. At the same time, we are building more scalable capabilities across the business, expanding integrated shared services with more than 1,500 colleagues, including now over 250 in Manila. This is all part of our broader productivity mindset. We are improving how we work, simplifying processes as we leverage AI, reducing OpEx and reinvesting behind the capabilities that matter most across both commercial and our supply chain. Our markets in Southeast Asia are our fastest growing within CCEP, as you saw earlier. In Indonesia, we made solid progress during the first half of this year with sparkling continuing to grow ahead of the total category. Our new launches like Sprite Nipis Mint, Coke Zero Vanilla and Powerade are performing well and have contributed significantly to growth in Q2, following a great festive period. This has been supported by our new route-to-market model, which is helping us strengthen execution and improve category participation with our distribution partners. In the Philippines, we've continued to see strong momentum. Our Coke Zero campaign focused around All-Out Sarap, or all-out deliciousness supported double-digit volume growth, and we've continued to see good momentum at Wilkins, our water brand, which is benefiting from new listings. We're also investing for future demand. Construction of our new facility remains on track for 2027, and this will provide additional capacity to support long-term profitable growth in the Philippines, with margins now approaching our 10% target. Taken together, Indonesia and the Philippines are becoming a scalable Southeast Asia growth engine for CCEP, combining strong category growth, improving execution, innovation momentum and growing profitability. Now just to talk a little bit to AI and tech. Our approach to AI is clear. We are focused on a key number of strategic opportunities across the business, but we are deliberately centered around growth. By way of a few examples, it is providing enhanced analytics to optimize promotional pricing levels. It is supporting our insights team to analyze data to drive swifter commercial decisions. It's cleaning millions of pieces of manufacturing data in days rather than years, and it's helping key account managers provide more effectively -- prepare more effectively for customer conversations and is starting to enhance productivity as we leverage digital twins in our supply chain. So what gives me confidence is that what we're seeing -- while we're seeing good progress against all our strategic priorities, we will keep coming back to demonstrate how we are strengthening our business today and creating foundations for tomorrow. We know, however, that we've got more to do. We continue to broaden our portfolio, especially in Zeros, bringing even more magic to Coke Original Taste and driving more innovation with new and exciting options coming from our brand partners. In Southeast Asia, we are encouraged by the early progress in Indonesia and the continued strength of the Philippines. Our focus is now to sustain that momentum and scale it into a long-term growth engine for CCEP. All of this whilst continue to execute across our markets each and every day whilst adapting even faster, leverage and tech across our business. So as you've seen today, we're continuing to build on the consistent track record of delivery over the past 10 years. We've created significant value for customers, consumers and shareholders, and we believe the opportunity ahead remains just as compelling. We are growing across attractive categories and markets, broadening our portfolio, winning through execution, sharpening our competitiveness, scaling Southeast Asia and unlocking new growth through data, technology and AI. The strength of our first half performance demonstrates the resilience of our business and the consistency of our growth model. While we have several key months to go and 6 less trading days in Q4, the second half has started well, giving us confidence in our full year outlook and our ability to deliver on our medium-term objectives. We are winning today, and we are creating an even stronger platform for tomorrow. Thank you, everybody. And Ed and I would now be very happy to take your questions. As I hand the call back over to you, Mel. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Edward Mundy: Look, I appreciate it's a little bit too early to talk about 2027 guidance, but I'd love to pick your brains as to how you're thinking philosophically about growth in next year. On the one hand, you're going to be lapping 2 really good summers. You've got FIFA. You've got this very strong innovation cycle that we've just been through. But on the other hand, you're broadening your portfolio, you're taking share. Southeast Asia seems to be waking up and AI is moving from a productivity tool to a growth engine. What are the 2 or 3 things that you're really excited about, Damian, as you go into 2027? Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Ed. I mean we'll talk later in the year with more specificity around '27. But clearly, we're excited about the second half of this year, just to maybe bring it back to '26. As I said, the second half of this year started well. We've continued to see good weather across most of our markets. And we've got a lot of good campaigns coming, whether that's around the Bundesliga, EPL, our new icon, look and feel for Coke Zero. We're only at the beginning with Coke Zero. Supercans are new. So a lot of the innovation that we've brought to market in '26, really we'll see the full year benefit of that in '27. So that definitely gives me some excitement and confidence. I think the second point I'd make, Ed, is that clearly, when we were preparing for FIFA, we were working very closely with the Coca-Cola Company to have a really exciting asset for the same period next year, and I'm really excited about that. Obviously, for various reasons, I can't get into more detail with it. But as you'd appreciate, we have been working hard to make sure we bring a similar level of excitement on store inventory to our consumers for 2027. You're right about Asia. I think we start to see that being a material player in our growth algorithm. It's great to see Indonesia performing. And again, a lot of the innovation we've brought this year will continue into 2027. Yes. And to your point around AI and tech, certainly, we will see net revenue per case playing a bigger part of our story in the second half of this year. We'll clearly continue to look at pricing opportunities as we exit '26, which again will give us a bit of momentum into 2027. So excited about the second half of this year and looking forward to an even more exciting 2027. Also, some of the foundational work we've been doing around cooler placements, some of those customer wins, I mean, they remain in our base into '27, and that also supports our growth objective. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Ford of BNP Paribas. Matthew Ford: The first one is just to pick up on something you just mentioned there, Damian, on the revenue per case kind of evolution. Particularly if we focus just on the Europe performance, Q2, I think, plus 1.3% revenue per unit case kind of in line with what we saw in Q1. And obviously, Q1 was impacted to a degree by the earlier timing of Easter. Just how much of the sort of slightly softer revenue per case is reflecting sort of the tougher consumer environment and the focus on affordability and large packs? Or is there something else in there? And should we expect the kind of European revenue per unit case to also sequentially improve? Clearly, in APS, we have -- we will fully cycle the Beam Suntory impact there. But specifically on Europe, what's your thoughts into the second half? And then very, very quickly, just, if I can, follow up on the Philippines. We're cycling, I think, as we go into Q3, the quite devastating typhoons you saw in July and August last year. So any update on how July and potentially the first couple of days of August have trended in the Philippines? Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Matt. Maybe I'll deal with the second part of your question and then hand back to Ed for your questions around the NSR per case. Yes, as I said, we're pleased with the way half 2 started across CCEP, including the Philippines. So far, we haven't seen similar weather that we had to deal with last year. So that will definitely help as we look at Q3. But generally, the momentum we saw in June is continuing across our business. So that gives us a lot of excitement for a solid Q3. And I'll hand back to Ed on the NSR per case question. Ed? Ed Walker: Yes. Thanks, Matt. So on the revenue per case and looking specifically at Europe, so yes, absolutely, as you said, we grew 1.4% per case in the quarter, and that was quite nicely balanced between rate and mix. I think one thing we need to remember is that last year, for the same time period, so Q2 2025, we grew 4.2% per case. So we're cycling a very strong revenue per case growth from the previous year. And as we look at the year as a whole, I think evening out the impact between different quarters, we still expect a good balance between volume growth and revenue per case growth. I think in Europe specifically, if you look at Q2, so we continue to see healthy brand mix coming through. We did have a bit more adversity in pack mix, but that's really as a result of the success of a lot of the activation we did with promotions and particularly around FIFA. So that's probably Q2 specifically. And then when we look at the rate, as I said, when we look at the year as a whole, we think that will be fairly balanced. We don't see any reduction in our ability to take price in our markets. And as always, as we've talked about before, these pricing decisions within quarter are quite dynamic and are always influenced by the period that we're tackling. We continue to focus on affordability, as we talked about last year and making sure we have the right packs at the right price for all of our consumers, but also that we give consumers great experiences through either our packs, through our innovation or some of the great activation we saw around FIFA like Panini, as Damian mentioned earlier. Damian Gammell: Yes. And I just think to build on that, I mean, on our last call, we've been very explicit about trying to balance pricing with value add because we think, obviously, the brands that we have bring a different level of excitement to our consumers. So what you'll see in Q2 and into Q3, a lot of our on-floor activation, particularly in retail is to win, to collect to get access to tickets. And we think that's important. While it offers value, it also brings excitement. And we think with the brands that we have, that's what consumers and indeed customers are looking for. So we'll continue to look at a balance of affordability to price value. We've got a lot of premium plays out there. A lot of our innovation is more in the premium space, Supercans, Coke Zero. And then we'll shift some more of those promotional funds back into value add. We see that responding really well. And no surprise, the gold can for the Spanish team has been a huge hit in Iberia. So elements like that, we think, are something that brands like Coke can do better than anybody else, and we'll keep leveraging them. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog, Goldman Sachs. Bonnie Herzog: I had a question on your volumes. I guess I was hoping to get a little more color on your volumes in the quarter and maybe how they trended relative to your internal expectations. Damian, you mentioned both the World Cup and favorable weather were 2 drivers of strength. So hoping maybe you could give us a sense of the lift you saw from this and maybe any other call-outs that surprised you from your perspective. Also, your guidance implies a decent deceleration of growth in the back half. So I guess I'm trying to understand how much was possibly pull forward into Q2 versus conservatism on your part? And finally, maybe just expected phasing of growth between Q3 and Q4. Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Bonnie. I can say there was zero pull forward or impact on Q3. So really healthy volume growth across the quarter. I would say it was a quarter where we delivered growth from a geographic perspective, very balanced. From a channel perspective, we were pleased. And also, as Ed mentioned, from a pack perspective. So it was broad across brands and packages. We came in with a lot of momentum into the third quarter. As I said, it started off well for us. So 0 impact on the growth from Q2 into Q3, which is great. In fact, probably some of the people who are working the hardest at CCEP are our supply chain colleagues as we continue to meet that increased demand coming out of the second half and rebuild inventories. So overall, very pleased. I would say, obviously, FIFA is a call out just in terms of its scale and impact. I would say some of the new innovations are doing better than we expected. So Coke Zero. I think the Supercans has surprised us, really connecting with a different user, and I think that's working really well. And obviously, we talked to some of the innovation in Asia, but particularly Powerade in Indonesia surprised us to the upside. So that's great. So quite broad, which is exciting, quite sustainable into Q3, Q4, and as I mentioned, to Ed's point, into next year. You could call us conservative. I mean, Ed and I looked at our numbers for the first half of the year, reflected on year to go. There's still 5 months to go. And clearly, we'll be able to update everybody in November on how we see the full year. But at this stage, given the volatility that we've seen, particularly on the cost side, it's great to be able to reaffirm what was pretty good guidance anyway. And that gives us a lot of excitement for the second half. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Simon Hales, Citi. Simon Hales: Damian, I wonder if you could just sort of pick your brains a little bit further on your comments around the H2 guidance and potentially some of perhaps the prudence you're building in there. I'm just still trying to square the circle because from everything you've said today, clearly, Q3 has started strongly. Momentum was very good. It's obviously through June, that's continued into July and perhaps early August. We've got perhaps lower promo coming in Europe in H2, generally, as you said, higher revenue per case, further cost efficiencies coming through. And yet overall comparable EBIT growth is expected to slow to probably around 6% and change in H2 to meet your guidance. You just flagged there your worries perhaps around some of the cost volatility we're seeing. Are you really sort of being pretty conservative because of the higher COGS per case we're seeing in the second half? And is that really driven by what you're seeing out of the Middle East in particular? I'm just trying to get a bit more of a flavor as to what's driving that potential conservatism on your part. Damian Gammell: Yes. I mean we look at the year in total, Simon. I mean I know everybody gets excited by quarters and the half year outlook when you take the first half and you deduct it from our guidance, I mean, you guys do the numbers as well, if not better than us. I suppose really it just comes down to we still have 5 big months. We still got to get through what is a really good summer for us in Europe, and we're excited about that. Then we move into spring, summer in our Australia, New Zealand businesses. So it more reflects a kind of time frame that we still have 5 -- what we hope will be great months to go. And that was it really. I mean there's nothing specific. When we look at our hedging, we're in a good place. We look at our pricing. We're in a good place. We would like to see a little bit more NSR per case progression in half 2. We're clearly working on that with our commercial teams. From a listings perspective, we're in good shape. Yes. So there's a lot to be positive about. We just felt with 5 months to go, sticking to our guidance is probably the best decision at the moment. And then obviously, should that change, we'll update it as we go through the year anyway as normal. So yes, nothing specific, more really that we felt we're just halfway through the game. Yes, maybe we are a little bit conservative, but that's -- Yes, maybe that's our way a little bit. I don't know, Ed, do you want to comment? Ed Walker: Well, maybe just one point to add. We have to remember, of course, that there were more selling days in the first half than the second half. So when we look at our reported revenue and our reported profit, they reflect that. So obviously, that means a few less selling days in the second half. But that's all as per our plan and how we anticipated the year would roll out at the beginning of the year. I think on the Middle East, as you mentioned that, I mean, we're in a good place in terms of our coverage for the year. But the majority of the costs will fall in the second half. That's all built into our guidance. But obviously, given the timing of that and given -- we're always a little bit more hedged in the near term than the midterm, we will see more of that cost in the second half. And of course, the Middle East itself is still an open item in terms of how it really affects all of us for the rest of the year. So just a couple of points there that might help, Simon. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Andrea Pistacchi, Bank of America. Andrea Pistacchi: I have a question on Indonesia, please, which delivered a strong quarter, albeit against a pretty easy comparison base. Is there anything in sort of the performance of this quarter and the previous ones that really is maybe increasing your confidence that the turnaround is gaining traction beyond the comp effects? And do you think now Indonesian is in a situation where it can start sustaining positive volume growth? Damian Gammell: Yes. Great question. We're really excited about Indonesia for the near and long term, obviously, just given some of the macros that we all know about. I think when we look at our business, we started the year off with a great festive, that's continued into Q2. A couple of drivers of that. One is structural. I mean, we've spent some time reorganizing our route to market and moving to a more efficient distributor model. We firmly believe that's a driver of growth for the long term. We've brought more innovation, whether it's on the mint side with Sprite or on Powerade, that's definitely driving growth. Our underlying performance on sparkling is actually better. So when you look at the consolidated number, within that, there's still a little bit of weakness on tea, and that's something that we need to deal with as we get through the second half of this year. But what that really shows is where we've been focused, which is on our sparkling portfolio, that's continued to go from strength to strength by quarter. So yes, a lot of moving parts in Indo. So I think while we're super excited, we're very happy with the route-to-market change. I'm particularly pleased for our team in Indo. I mean they've been working through a lot of change. It's great for them to see the positives, particularly on sparkling month after month, quarter after quarter. So we expect that to continue to -- through half 2 and then into 2027. So obviously, our objective for that business that it does become a consistent driver of revenue volume for CCEP. We're starting to see that this year. And clearly, we can update as we get into next year, yes, but definitely too early to talk about success. I would say it's great to talk about progress, and that's where we are at the moment. Andrea Pistacchi: Can I squeeze in, please, a very quick follow-up on how the supply chain has coped with maybe the increased strain because of the incremental demand because of the weather. Has there been any pressure on the cost base, maybe logistics or production? Or have you coped with that normally? Damian Gammell: Yes. I'd say the team, I mentioned it earlier and a big call out to all our colleagues in customer service and supply chain. We've managed it really well. I mean we've had to make some, I would say, short-term tactical decisions about prioritizing certain SKUs. We came into the summer with reasonably good inventories. Our customers usually have good inventory. So that buffer certainly helps us to manage the uplift we've seen, particularly in June and into July. So yes, not without pressure. And I would say a lot of hard work, but nothing significantly impacting our cost base or anything like that. It's been really good to see that the team and our factories can respond to that uplift. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey, Wells Fargo Securities. Christopher Carey: I wanted to follow up on confidence levels around using pricing as a lever. Clearly, coming into 2026, there was a key strategy across the Coca-Cola system to drive improved or more balanced top line growth with volume. You've talked about in this call, providing consumers with the appropriate value and price points. But as we look at 2027, it certainly does seem like inflation will be higher than it is in 2026 based on what we can see today with acceleration in the back half. So how does this strategy in 2026 evolve into 2027? Can the pricing line continue to be as robust for you when you need it most when inflation is rising? Or is there a step change in the thought process about how to manage these inflationary backdrop, say, relative to 2022 and 2023? And I just wonder if you could maybe one level down and talk about how you would view this in your Europe versus APS businesses as well. Damian Gammell: [indiscernible] give us access to a much more elastic consumer environment on pricing. So I think that's quite different to a lot of businesses in [indiscernible]. We're also more diversified than ever across categories and packs. So again, when we look at pricing, it's a very, very segmented strategy. And I think that gives us confidence that pricing will remain part of our mix story through '26 and into 2027. It's a similar environment in APS, albeit I would say we're focused on affordability, as you'd expect, more in markets like Indonesia and Philippines, where we just know out-of-pocket spend under more pressure. But ultimately, we feel with that diversity and a segmented approach, we're in good shape for this year and next year. I don't know, Ed, do you want to? Ed Walker: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. I mean if you look back over our history, we've managed successfully, I think, periods of low inflation and periods of high inflation. It will be a balanced approach, as you said, Chris, we're very conscious of the need for volume growth across the business and revenue per case growth. I think one of the strong things about CCP is we have many levers to that pricing, whether it's the headline price, a lot of opportunity always to make our promotions work harder and be more efficient. And then as you look across the portfolio, many different packs and brands. which really lends ourselves to being able to take that very segmented approach. And I think '27 will be no different from any of the other years. It will be a very carefully considered approach, and we'll look at what's the right thing from a consumer pricing perspective from affordability, what's the right thing for the category from a customer perspective and of course, what do we need to do to cover cost in our business, but also to invest in the future. So I think we will see the same type of trends and the same type of activities as we've seen in previous years of maybe slightly higher inflation. Damian Gammell: Yes. And I think we're also leveraging innovation as well. I think a lot of the innovation you'll see coming through smaller pack sizes, generating a higher revenue per case, commanding a bit more of a premium. And there's more of that to come as we look at brands like BODYARMOR or what we do with Powerade I talked about earlier. Obviously, energy is mainly single-serve, drives a nice revenue per case. So to Ed's point, I think we have a lot of different levers beyond that kind of headline price element, but there will be some headline price as well. But the combination of all of those gives us confidence that we can maintain a quality top line growth, which for us is really a little bit of price, mix and volume and also sustained margin expansion on the P&L, which we're obviously very focused on. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla, UBS. Sanjeet Aujla: Damian and Ed, I just wanted to dig into your share trends across Europe. I think we started the year with some weaker momentum, particularly in Germany and France. How have you seen your competitiveness develop through the course of the half year period? And specifically on the Away from Home channel, I think volumes were only up 0.5%. Are there any parts of Europe where performance is lagging? I think there was a bit of momentum build last year, but has that faded a little bit this year? Or how would you assess your Away from Home performance in Q2? Damian Gammell: Thanks, Sanjeet. So our share has improved, particularly in Europe as the year has progressed. We're actually seeing a slightly better volume share than value share. And that comes back to some of the points Ed talked about. We've seen some of our large PET initiatives pay off, particularly on Die Coke. So I want to -- I'm a Diet Coke fan, so I want to call that Die Coke, where we've seen that brand return to growth in GB. So our volume share is improving and so is value share in Europe. And as you see overall in NARTD, we gained share. In terms of Away from Home, I would say it's pretty consistent with last year. Obviously, revenue is doing a little bit better than volume. Across all of our markets, it's pretty consistent. Obviously, it's picked up a bit as the weather kicked in, particularly in June and into July. Yes, so nothing structural there. Obviously, it continues to be a channel where we've got to drive more availability. So our coolers are a big part of our Away from Home strategy. And we've got to manage clearly, particularly down the trade -- you'll see a bit more meal deals. You've seen that from some of our big customers, a bit more value from McDonald's. And I think that just reflects what Ed talked to that while we see the business being very resilient, we are conscious that some consumers still respond more to value, and that's also true in Away from Home. Yes, but 2 years now where we've seen growth in Away from Home, and we're really happy with that. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Richard Withagen, Kepler Cheuvreux. Richard Withagen: You mentioned promotions and promo spending a few times on the call today. And I think also on previous calls, you mentioned it. Can you perhaps quantify promo spending? Is there more optimization potential? And what else in revenue and margin growth management are you focusing on to optimize? Damian Gammell: There's always opportunity when I speak to my key account and commercial team. It's a big pot of money. So I do think optimization has really improved. I mean we've done some good work using technology. We clearly understand what promos don't create value for us or our customers, what promos drive better household penetration. So we will continue with that. I think beyond promo optimization, and you'll probably see that a little bit in some of our markets some of the promo depth is increasing. So we see similar promos, but at a slightly higher promotional price. Clearly, to Ed's point earlier, that will support some of that NSR growth through to the second half of the year. Beyond that, I mean, I think, as I talked to earlier, our innovation plays a good role. It's mainly single-serve. It's mainly more premium compared to large PET and a lot of it's on the go, which commands a higher price. And then within retail, we see opportunity, particularly I'm just back from a visit to the U.S. with Ed you can really see how they've taken mini cans, small PET even further than we have in Europe. I mean that's been a good part of our story. But when you visit markets like that, you can see how that can be even a bigger part of our story in Europe and in Australia. So I think packaging, pack mix, pack innovation will be a bigger part of our -- or MGM story going forward. And then clearly, categories. So when we look at sports, particularly Powerade and Aquarius, they drive a much better mix for us. So -- and again, just referencing my North American trip when you stand in front of a fixture in the U.S. and also, I would say, in Australia, to our team's credit in Australia, they've just done a much bigger job on making Powerade and that whole sports category relevant. We see the growth in that in Europe, but there's a long way to go. So it's a combination of that price promo optimization, pack mix optimization and better category leverage. And I think that gives us confidence not just for '27, but over the next number of years in Europe and in Australia and New Zealand. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat, Bernstein. Nadine Sarwat: One for me, please. That 20,000 new coolers added is a pretty incredible number, and you referenced it quite a lot in a helpful manner in your prepared remarks. Can you give us a sense of how this incremental cooler capacity is distributed across your geographies or channels? And just help us understand the ROI or incremental sales or positive mix generated by an investment like that in whatever way in terms of quantifying that, that you can? Ed Walker: Thanks, Nadine. Great question. So actually, it's 80,000 coolers that we've done this year, and that was building on significant increase as well last year. So yes, we're very pleased with our progress on cooler placements. I would say it's fairly evenly balanced across our markets and actually pretty evenly balanced across channels, both in the Home channel and Away from Home. We found lots more opportunities to place coolers, both Coke coolers and Monster coolers. From a finance perspective, there are some of the best investments we like to make. Every cooler is different depending on where you place it, but you can be looking at returns of certainly within a couple of years for a well-placed cooler. We give quite specific guidance to our sales teams in terms of what type of throughput we need to be seeing in order to generate the return. And then if that throughput is delivered, then you can be very comfortable with the return. And of course, we're starting to see more and more the use of connected coolers and that gives us great feedback on the number of purchases, what's the right distribution of products and brands, the right rates of sale that we should be seeing through those coolers. So again, another area where technology and AI is really giving us fantastic insight to make sure we put the right coolers of the right size in the right locations. But certainly, from a finance perspective, very happy with the returns we receive from our cold drink placements. Nadine Sarwat: Understood. And one follow-up on that, actually. It clearly is meeting the consumer at a place where they want something cold, they want something convenient. What does that say about underlying consumer dynamics today, single-serve versus multipacks? And how are you expecting that to evolve over the coming years? Damian Gammell: Yes. I mean I think our single-serve business, particularly as we bring more flavor and innovation is really robust, and it's something that we know that our category is an impulse category, right? So it's a huge benefit that if you put it in the right place and it's cold, it gets sold. And that's been true for a long, long time in our business. It's also an area where you can get price elasticity. So I think people realize and accept that for that convenience and for that immediate cold product, they'll pay a little bit more, which is good for us and for our customer. And typically, when you look at our beverages across our markets, while we have taken pricing, I mean you can get a cold Coke in most of our markets for around EUR 1, $1.50. So while we do talk about pricing, the absolute spend to enjoy one of our products, I would argue, is always still very reasonable, let's put it that way. And then on top of that, you've got categories like energy and sports that command a premium. And candidly, our distribution, particularly on sports in Away from Home and cold is very low. So that's something we've got to find a better way to unlock that opportunity. Ed Walker: I think it also says quite a bit about the customer and the customer sees the value in the category overall and that it's a great value creator from them from an outlet perspective. So we see increasing signs of the customer wanting to place more and more equipment and give more and more space to soft drinks, which I think is a great thing for us, obviously. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett, Deutsche Bank. Mitchell Collett: I enjoyed your third slide, the new one, so thank you for that. And there was a bullet on there about KIRA, your Agentic AI application. And you say that it gave you deeper brand insights and faster market decisions. So I just wondered if you could give us any examples of those insights and decisions? And how do you expect that tool to develop and contribute to the business going forward? Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Mitch. I mean we have got a wealth of information as a system. I think that's the starting point, whether it's from our customers, from our own structured research with the Coca-Cola Company and Monster, EPOS data. I mean, we really have a lot of information. Our challenge was trying to put that in a place where we could access it and use different sources to make better decisions. And this is, I think, a challenge of many companies. So KIRA really is our first big attempt to have an AI agent that sits above a lot of those sources, whether it's Nielsen, Kantar, EPOS information, brand information from the Coca-Cola Company. And it is giving us a better understanding of how consumers respond to some of our initiatives, whether that's promo or new pack innovation. And clearly, then that steers the next decision about where we prioritize resource. So it's really allowing our commercial teams to ask the right question, get a very quick answer and then bring that to our customers to shape whether it's space in a cooler, better promo pricing or better innovation as we go forward. So I think we're at the beginning of that. I mean we've also done some work with McKinsey on trying to look at how AI can sit above even more information and really consolidating a great data set from the Coca-Cola Company with what we have. And I think, yes, that's where KIRA kind of sits in the middle of that. So early days, but it's certainly amazing to see how what took weeks to try and get some correlation between Nielsen shopper panel or customer data is now happening a lot, lot quicker, yes. So super exciting. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Eric Serotta, Morgan Stanley. Eric Serotta: Two quick ones. First, Damian, back in Manila, you talked about the potential for -- or the potential upside for improving kind of core sparkling volumes in Europe. It looks like you made some progress in terms of Diet Coke and light in a couple of markets. Original Taste seemed a little on the soft side. But even taking sort of a step back from the quarter-to-quarter volatility, could you talk about your progress and your confidence in achieving that core sparkling volume improvement in Europe since we heard from this a little over a year ago. And then a quick one for Ed. Usually, around this time, you're around midyear, you're typically about 50% hedged on commodities for the following year. Where do you guys stand today? Are you a little bit less because of maybe elevated prices earlier in the year? Or were there some opportunities given the forward curves on commodities? Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Eric. Good memory back to our Manila meeting. Yes. So we have seen sparkling volumes grow in Europe, and I think that's been great. It's been led by Zeros, which are up over 10%. You're absolutely right. The brand that hasn't grown volume has really been Coke Classic, and we've talked about that. And I think there's a couple of factors at play. Obviously, people are enjoying great tasting zero sugar options, particularly Coke Zero, but now Diet Coke, which is great. So on a consolidated level, we can grow our Coke trademark franchise and volume, and that for us is really important. Coke Classic is still the best tasting brand. So we still see that performing, and it's still growing revenue. So while on a volume level, it's off a little bit, it is growing revenue. And I think that will continue as we have, as I mentioned earlier, mini cans, probably smaller portions around our classic variants, both Coke and Fanta and clearly, a better Zero proposition. So the category is growing. It will be led by zeroes. We see that gaining momentum, both in energy and in soft drinks. And as we've reformulated, we're now really in a solid position to take that forward. Also fair to say the Coke Classic, when you look at -- in the shorter period, we did have the sugar tax increase in France. And clearly, that was mainly on Coke Classic, and that obviously impacts volume in the short term, but we generally cycle out of that through the year. Yes. But overall, great to see the category, sparkling category in growth and great to see it led by zeroes. And I'll just pass the call to Ed on your second question. Ed Walker: Yes. Thank you, Eric. So yes, as you say, we aim to be 80% covered by the time we start the coming year. We don't give specific guidance at this stage in terms of the year coming at where we are at the half year point, but we aim to build it up fairly evenly over the year. So as you say, 50% is probably a reasonable approximation. We haven't delayed any of our hedging activity this year despite the Middle East because obviously, we try to avoid or we do avoid speculation, and we do the hedging to give us certainty in terms of as far as possible on costs for the coming year. Although the forwards are higher, I think what we have seen through the Middle East crisis is quite a lot more volatility on individual commodity prices. So we have locked in what I think are some good competitive rates for next year already. But we haven't overall delayed our hedging program just as a result of the Middle East. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman, Barclays. Lauren Lieberman: I wanted to just talk for a second about the more customers element of your strategic priorities. There were a couple of called out in the release, but it's interesting to think about the range of large customers that would be directly linked to KO level conversations like Marriott versus things that are more specific to your markets. So I was curious if you could talk a little bit about that process and maybe how much of this more customers you think of as being CCEP specific, things that are driven by your ability to cover more accounts with the productivity you're finding in your sales force versus big global strategic partnerships. Damian Gammell: Lauren, it's mainly within CCEP's control and mandate. We won a lot of new business, both small and large. We won businesses in the event space. I talked about football. We won the biggest local chain in Spain in terms of pizza and food to go, Domino's in Australia. So clearly, we leverage any global relationship we can get with the Coca-Cola Company, but the majority of the outlets are very local. And we're very focused on that. You see a lot of multiple buying groups, particularly in Europe and Australia, where they have 10 to 12 outlets, and they're exciting. Obviously, a win like Marriott lifts all boats. So when the Coca-Cola Company shared that news, it was fantastic for us, 600 hotels. And I think globally, when you look at our global franchise partners through the Coca-Cola Company are very strong already. So I would say the upside for us, we'd always welcome a gift from Atlanta if they can land one of the big global ones. But really for us, it's in our control, and it's mainly local chains. Our share in Away from Home is quite high relative to retail, but that doesn't mean we don't have opportunities, and we'll keep picking up new customers and new business as we go through this year. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs, Rothschild & Co Redburn. Charlie Higgs: And also I want to say happy birthday to CCP for 10 years in the quarter. And I hope it was a good party. And on that note, I was wondering, if we look back over the last 10 years in Europe specifically, there's been a lot of volatility at the macro level, sugar taxes and whatnot. And yet CCP Europe has still delivered very resilient 4% or so organic sales growth per annum. And then it seems like a lot of the themes in the presentation today is about really dialing up the execution at the local level with KO, more cooler placements, more customers, bigger, stronger innovations. So how should we think about the growth setup for Europe going forward? And I guess where I'm coming from is, why isn't the European guidance more like 3% to 4% over the medium term rather than the 2% to 3%? Damian Gammell: Thanks, Charlie. Well, thank you for the birthday wishes. We're all very busy during the summer. We had a little bit of a party. Yes, I mean, Europe, since we created CCEP has been a massive value creator compounding year-on-year, and we see that continuing. I mean, obviously, we look at guidance on the midterm. And as we look at the group guidance around that 4% revenue, to your point, that implies Europe around 2% to 3%. Yes. And we think on a steady state, that's a good number. If we can do better than that, obviously, we will. Within that, we have factored in that transition from classic to more zero. That's accelerating, and we see that we're benefiting from that this year. Yes, we'll review guidance as we get more visibility on innovation with the Coca-Cola Company and Monster for Europe as we go into 2027. But I think overall, that range of 2% to 3% is a good number, leads to the 4% for the group. Obviously, your next question would be, if we did change Europe, would we change the group? And clearly, we want to manage all that within our current framework. But yes, happy to stick to the 2% to 3% for Europe. Yes. Thanks, Charlie. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Robert Ottenstein, Evercore ISI. Robert Ottenstein: Damian, at this point, you've managed through a number of the FIFA World Cups. And so I was wondering if you could reflect on how the execution, the stuff that we don't see, but the kind of the nuts and bolts that goes into success has changed over prior World Cups, whether it's coordination with the Coca-Cola Company, dealing with more social media now, more agility, changing things on the run. Just some of the things underneath the hood that we just can't see. I love you to reflect on that. And then just one small question, just sort of coming into work today, I saw a headline about possible tax changes in Philippines on CSDs. Maybe give some context. I don't know if that's a special thing or something that was expected. Damian Gammell: Thanks, Robert. I mean, I think -- and obviously, you listened in, obviously, on the KO side. I mean it was the biggest FIFA activation globally. Certainly, CCEP played a big part in that. It's always been a big event for us, but I think there was something very special about this year. And I think it was mainly in the space of digital and being able to drive more transactions with FIFA. I think Manolo and the team, both in Atlanta and locally in Europe, really focused on making FIFA transaction event. We obviously had the Panini initiative, which was huge in Europe. We had a lot of opportunities for our consumers to engage on pack. That was quite different to previous FIFA. Yes. And I think overall, that led us to be able to activate more cases on the floor, et cetera. Also, you mentioned speed. I mean, I think the gold can coming out so quick for Spain, I think, again, that just shows how as a system and as a business, we're able to move fast, make fast decisions and be prepared. We had a number of gold cans ready just in case. I won't name the ones that didn't make it. But clearly, we're happy Spain, given it's one of our key markets made it. So probably the digital tech and social engagement, Robert, would be what I'd call out as being at a very, very high level compared to previous FIFA's. Ed Walker: I mean on the sugar tax, I mean, there is some stuff in the media today. I think we need a bit of time to go through that. I think if you take a step back, though, we're well used to dealing with tax changes across all of our markets. If you look last year, we had the France sugar tax, which had some impact within the year. But as a good example, in quarter 2, we were back into volume growth in France. I think when you look across our portfolio with the number of packs and brands that we have and our R&MGM capability, we're well -- we're in a good position to be able to manage the impact of those types of tax changes as they come. So we'll do a bit more digging on what's actually proposed for the Philippines and reflect on that for our plans for 2027. Damian Gammell: And we already have a tax in the Philippines. It's an excise tax, so it's across all beverages, sugar and sweeteners. So that's already in place, Robert. So let's see what changes they propose to that as well. Operator: Our last question for today comes from the line of Carlos Laboy, HSBC. Carlos Alberto Laboy: Damian, I was hoping you could follow up a little bit on Lauren's question. What has changed that is helping you drive recruitment of more customers better? Is it an internal mindset? Is it that you have new tools that allow you to crack the code on these opportunities better? And is this something that you think can continue to drive growth in your client base going forward? Damian Gammell: Yes. Thanks, Carlos. I mean it's something that's been a consistent part of our story at CCEP. I mean I think probably a couple of years ago, we talked about having a bolder view on the Away from Home market. I mean that market had been in decline for a while. And we talked about not being passive about that and actually working across a number of areas to drive growth in away-from-home, including customer wins. So one pillar was customer wins. The second pillar, which we talked about was cooler placements, so to drive more availability in that space. And the third element was leveraging our consumer assets better to drive transactions, and I talked to FIFA doing that as well. Clearly, as we broaden our portfolio, we've become a very compelling partner for customers. We bring to all of them a hydration platform, a leading energy platform, clearly the leading CSD portfolio. And then obviously, we're looking at bringing more innovation in sports and hydration. So when you look at NARTD, there's no one really with the breadth of portfolio that we can bring. There's a lot of companies with individual strength in different segments. I think that's definitely compelling, Carlos. And I think the more we talk to that total portfolio and the category opportunity, the more it plays into customers' needs for profit and growth. And typically, they earn good margin on our products, particularly in Out of Home. And obviously, as businesses become tougher with rates or with inflation around labor, selling a category that generates good margin definitely makes life a little bit easier for our sales force. So yes, probably a combination of all those elements. It's always been part of our story. It's always been a passionate part of our business that we want to onboard a lot more customers. That's definitely true in the Philippines, Indonesia. We're having a lot of customer wins in Australia and also in Europe, yes. So happy to be able to talk to it today. Operator: I would now like to hand the conference back over to Damian Gammell for his closing remarks. Damian, please go ahead. Damian Gammell: Thanks, Mel. And a big, big thank you to everybody who joined us this morning or this afternoon. So as Ed and I talked to, strong first half and very happy that today, we're reaffirming our full year guidance. We are very pleased with the progress against our strategic priorities as we've outlined today. Also pleased with the start of half 2. And I think the strength of our business demonstrates resilience and the consistency of our growth model. We do look forward to speaking to you again at Q3. In the meantime, I hope everybody can get a break and enjoy a great summer, ideally in one of our markets and obviously enjoy a nice cold beverage from one of our new coolers. So thank you very much, and have a great rest of the day. Thank you. Operator: That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. 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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-05Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Q2 2026 Earnings Call Summary
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Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Q2 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Performance was characterized by balanced top-line growth across markets, driven by a combination of volume expansion and positive revenue per case despite cycling high prior-year comparables. The 'total beverage' portfolio strategy is yielding results, with Zero Sugar, Energy, and Sports categories significantly outperforming, led by Monster volumes growing at twice the category rate. Operational success was anchored by the largest-ever activation program for the FIFA World Cup, which management credits for driving both brand engagement and tangible transaction growth. Strategic investments in Southeast Asia are beginning to scale, with Indonesia showing progress through a new route-to-market model and the Philippines approaching a 10% margin target. Productivity gains and disciplined cost management supported a 30 basis point operating margin expansion, helping to offset inflationary pressures and supply chain complexities. Management attributes continued value share gains to high service levels and a 'productivity mindset' that allows for reinvestment into coolers, technology, and brand activation. Full-year 2026 guidance is reaffirmed, assuming a stronger revenue-per-case contribution in the second half to balance volume momentum. The second half of the year faces a headwind of 6 fewer trading days, which is factored into the maintained guidance despite a strong start to Q3. Cost of sales per unit case is expected to rise to 1.5% for the full year, implying a step-up in H2 as the business absorbs delayed impacts from Middle East volatility. Capital expenditure remains focused on long-term capacity, including a new greenfield site in Manila scheduled for 2027 and continued acceleration of cooler placements. Management expects the innovation pipeline, specifically 'Supercans' and new Zero Sugar variants, to provide a significant growth tailwind heading into 2027. The exit from the Suntory alcohol brand in Australia Pacific created a 1% revenue headwind in the first half, masking a 10% growth rate in the core non-alcohol business. Supply chain teams are currently prioritizing specific SKUs and rebuilding inventories to meet higher-than-expected demand following favorable summer weather in Europe. Management…Read full documentShow less
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Performance was characterized by balanced top-line growth across markets, driven by a combination of volume expansion and positive revenue per case despite cycling high prior-year comparables. The 'total beverage' portfolio strategy is yielding results, with Zero Sugar, Energy, and Sports categories significantly outperforming, led by Monster volumes growing at twice the category rate. Operational success was anchored by the largest-ever activation program for the FIFA World Cup, which management credits for driving both brand engagement and tangible transaction growth. Strategic investments in Southeast Asia are beginning to scale, with Indonesia showing progress through a new route-to-market model and the Philippines approaching a 10% margin target. Productivity gains and disciplined cost management supported a 30 basis point operating margin expansion, helping to offset inflationary pressures and supply chain complexities. Management attributes continued value share gains to high service levels and a 'productivity mindset' that allows for reinvestment into coolers, technology, and brand activation. Full-year 2026 guidance is reaffirmed, assuming a stronger revenue-per-case contribution in the second half to balance volume momentum. The second half of the year faces a headwind of 6 fewer trading days, which is factored into the maintained guidance despite a strong start to Q3. Cost of sales per unit case is expected to rise to 1.5% for the full year, implying a step-up in H2 as the business absorbs delayed impacts from Middle East volatility. Capital expenditure remains focused on long-term capacity, including a new greenfield site in Manila scheduled for 2027 and continued acceleration of cooler placements. Management expects the innovation pipeline, specifically 'Supercans' and new Zero Sugar variants, to provide a significant growth tailwind heading into 2027. The exit from the Suntory alcohol brand in Australia Pacific created a 1% revenue headwind in the first half, masking a 10% growth rate in the core non-alcohol business. Supply chain teams are currently prioritizing specific SKUs and rebuilding inventories to meet higher-than-expected demand following favorable summer weather in Europe. Management noted that while headline pricing remains a lever, they are shifting promotional funds toward 'value-add' mechanics like Panini stickers and exclusive items to maintain consumer excitement. Uncertainty regarding potential new excise tax changes in the Philippines is being monitored, though management highlighted their experience in navigating similar regulatory shifts in France. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management explained that Q2's 1.4% growth was balanced between rate and mix, though impacted by a shift toward larger formats during promotional periods. They expressed confidence in maintaining pricing power, citing a segmented strategy that uses pack innovation and premium categories like Energy to drive mix. Growth is being driven by a structural shift to a more efficient distributor-led route-to-market model and successful sparkling innovation. While sparkling is performing well, management acknowledged ongoing weakness in the tea category that requires further intervention in the second half. The 'KIRA' AI agent is being used to synthesize vast data sets from Nielsen and internal sources to make faster decisions on promotional pricing and cooler space. Management noted that AI has significantly accelerated the process of correlating shopper and customer data, which previously took weeks, allowing for more agile responses to consumer trends. CCEP is approximately 50% hedged for 2027 commodities, sticking to their disciplined timeline despite increased market volatility. The CFO emphasized that they avoid speculation, focusing instead on locking in competitive rates to provide cost certainty for the upcoming year.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-04Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) (Q2 2026) Earnings Call Highlights: Strong H1 Growth ...
GuruFocus.com
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) (Q2 2026) Earnings Call Highlights: Strong H1 Growth ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Revenue: EUR10.7 billion, up 6.1%. Volume Growth: 5.6% overall, or 2.2% on a days-adjusted basis. Revenue per Case: Grew 0.4%. Cost of Sales per Unit Case: Increased by 0.6%. Operating Profit: EUR1.5 billion, up 8.1%, with an operating margin of 13.8%, up around 30 basis points. Diluted Earnings Per Share: EUR2.20, up 10.6%. Free Cash Flow: EUR435 million, slightly ahead of last year. OpEx as Percentage of Revenue: 21.4%, an improvement of around 40 basis points. Zero Sugar Volume Growth: Increased by 10%. Energy Volume Growth: Up 19%, with Monster Ultra range up over 50%. Sports and Hydration Volume Growth: Up 12%. Sprite Volume Growth: Grew by 6%. Cooler Additions: Added more than 80,000 coolers this year, an increase of 5%. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Signs with EVEX. Is CCEP fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: August 04, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Delivered strong first-half results with revenue up 6.1% and operating profit up 8.1%, driven by broad-based growth across markets and categories. Continued to gain market share, with value share up 20 basis points, led by gains in Europe. Strong momentum in key growth categories, with energy volumes up 19% and zero-sugar volumes up 10%. Successful execution of major FIFA World Cup activation, driving consumer engagement and supporting volume growth. Southeast Asia operations, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, are showing strong growth and improving profitability, with the Philippines margins approaching the 10% target. Revenue per case growth was modest at 0.4%, impacted by a strong prior-year comparison and a shift to larger, value-oriented formats in Europe. Cost of sales per unit case increased by 0.6%, with higher costs expected in the second half due to Middle East-related pressures. The Suntory alcohol exit in APS created a headwind, reducing total revenue by over 1% in the first half. Core sparkling volume growth in Europe remains challenged, with Coca-Cola Classic volumes slightly down, though revenue is growing. Management reaffirmed full-year guidance, implying a deceleration in growth in the second half, partly due to six fewer trading days and conservative outlook. Q: Can you provide more color on the volume growth i…Read full documentShow less
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Revenue: EUR10.7 billion, up 6.1%. Volume Growth: 5.6% overall, or 2.2% on a days-adjusted basis. Revenue per Case: Grew 0.4%. Cost of Sales per Unit Case: Increased by 0.6%. Operating Profit: EUR1.5 billion, up 8.1%, with an operating margin of 13.8%, up around 30 basis points. Diluted Earnings Per Share: EUR2.20, up 10.6%. Free Cash Flow: EUR435 million, slightly ahead of last year. OpEx as Percentage of Revenue: 21.4%, an improvement of around 40 basis points. Zero Sugar Volume Growth: Increased by 10%. Energy Volume Growth: Up 19%, with Monster Ultra range up over 50%. Sports and Hydration Volume Growth: Up 12%. Sprite Volume Growth: Grew by 6%. Cooler Additions: Added more than 80,000 coolers this year, an increase of 5%. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Signs with EVEX. Is CCEP fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: August 04, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Delivered strong first-half results with revenue up 6.1% and operating profit up 8.1%, driven by broad-based growth across markets and categories. Continued to gain market share, with value share up 20 basis points, led by gains in Europe. Strong momentum in key growth categories, with energy volumes up 19% and zero-sugar volumes up 10%. Successful execution of major FIFA World Cup activation, driving consumer engagement and supporting volume growth. Southeast Asia operations, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, are showing strong growth and improving profitability, with the Philippines margins approaching the 10% target. Revenue per case growth was modest at 0.4%, impacted by a strong prior-year comparison and a shift to larger, value-oriented formats in Europe. Cost of sales per unit case increased by 0.6%, with higher costs expected in the second half due to Middle East-related pressures. The Suntory alcohol exit in APS created a headwind, reducing total revenue by over 1% in the first half. Core sparkling volume growth in Europe remains challenged, with Coca-Cola Classic volumes slightly down, though revenue is growing. Management reaffirmed full-year guidance, implying a deceleration in growth in the second half, partly due to six fewer trading days and conservative outlook. Q: Can you provide more color on the volume growth in Q2, the drivers behind it, and whether the full-year guidance implies a conservative outlook for H2?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) stated there was zero pull-forward of demand from Q2 into Q3, with growth being broad-based across geographies, channels, and brands. He highlighted the FIFA World Cup activation and better-than-expected performance from new innovations like Coke Zero Zero and Supercans as key drivers. Regarding the guidance, he acknowledged they may be "a little bit conservative," but with five months remaining, they prefer to reaffirm their existing guidance, which already reflects strong growth. The H2 slowdown is partly due to six fewer trading days and the timing of Middle East cost absorption. Q: How should we think about the revenue per case evolution in Europe, and what is the outlook for pricing and mix in the second half?A: Edward Walker (CFO) explained that Europe's Q2 revenue per case growth of 1.4% was cycling a very strong 4.2% from the prior year. He noted a healthy brand mix but a slight adversity in pack mix due to successful FIFA-related promotions. For the full year, he expects a good balance between volume and revenue per case growth, with no reduction in pricing power. Damian Gammell (CEO) added that they are balancing affordability with value-add activations and premium innovations like Supercans, which should support net revenue per case progression in H2. Q: What is driving the strong performance in Indonesia, and is the turnaround now sustainable?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) expressed excitement about Indonesia's near and long-term potential. He attributed the strong quarter to structural changes, including a reorganized route-to-market with a more efficient distributor model, and a wave of new innovations like Sprite Nippy's Mint and Powerade. While sparkling is growing ahead of the category, he noted some weakness in tea that needs addressing. He emphasized that while it's too early to declare success, the progress is tangible, and they expect the momentum to continue into H2 and 2027. Q: Given the potential for higher inflation in 2027, how confident are you in using pricing as a lever, and how might this strategy evolve?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) highlighted that only 5% of their revenue is in retail, giving them access to a more elastic consumer environment. He emphasized a highly segmented pricing strategy across categories and packs, which provides confidence for 2026 and 2027. Edward Walker (CFO) added that they have many levers beyond headline price, including promotional efficiency and pack mix, and will take a balanced approach to manage inflation while investing in the business. Q: Can you elaborate on the share trends in Europe and the performance of the away-from-home channel?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) reported that share has improved in Europe as the year progressed, with volume share slightly better than value share, driven by initiatives like large PET packs and the return to growth of Diet Coke in GB. On away-from-home, he said performance is consistent with last year, with revenue doing better than volume. The channel is benefiting from cooler placements and major activations like FIFA, though they remain conscious of consumers' focus on value, as seen in meal deals at QSRs. Q: How are you optimizing promotional spending, and what other revenue and margin growth management levers are you focusing on?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) stated that promotional optimization is a key focus, using technology to identify promos that don't create value. He noted that while promo depth is increasing, they are seeing similar promotions at slightly higher prices, which will support NSR growth. Beyond that, he highlighted innovation in single-serve and premium packs, pack mix optimization, and better leveraging of faster-growing categories like sports and energy as key levers for future growth. Q: What is the ROI on the significant investment in new coolers, and how are they distributed across geographies and channels?A: Edward Walker (CFO) explained that the 80,000 new coolers added this year are fairly evenly balanced across markets and channels. He described cooler placements as some of the best investments they make, with well-placed coolers generating returns within a couple of years. The use of connected coolers is providing valuable data on throughput and product mix, ensuring they place the right coolers in the right locations. Damian Gammell (CEO) added that the cold single-serve business is robust and commands a premium, with a cold Coke available for around 1 in most markets. Q: Can you provide examples of how your agentic AI application, Kira, is providing insights and driving faster decisions?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) explained that Kira is their first major AI agent that sits above various data sources like Nielsen, Kantar, EPOS, and brand information from the Coca-Cola Company. It allows commercial teams to ask questions and get quick answers on consumer responses to initiatives, steering decisions on resource allocation, promo pricing, and innovation. He noted that what used to take weeks to correlate is now happening much faster, making it a super exciting development for the business. Q: What progress have you made on improving core sparkling volume growth in Europe, and what is your current hedging position for next year?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) confirmed that sparkling volumes are growing in Europe, led by Zeros, which are up over 10%. While Coke Classic volume is slightly off, it is still growing revenue. He attributed this to the shift to zero-sugar options and the impact of the sugar tax in France. Edward Walker (CFO) stated they aim to be 80% hedged for the coming year and are approximately 50% hedged at the half-year point. Despite higher forward prices due to the Middle East, they have locked in some competitive rates and have not delayed their hedging program. Q: How much of the "more customers" strategy is driven by CCEP-specific initiatives versus global partnerships with the Coca-Cola Company?A: Damian Gammell (CEO) clarified that the majority of new customer wins are within CCEP's control, focusing on local chains and outlets. While they welcome global wins like Marriott, which covers 600 hotels, the upside is primarily from local execution. He noted that their away-from-home share is high relative to retail, but there are still opportunities to pick up new business across their markets. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-04Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q2 Revenue Rises; Fiscal 2026 Revenue Outlook Reaffirmed
MT Newswires
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q2 Revenue Rises; Fiscal 2026 Revenue Outlook Reaffirmed
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) reported Q2 revenue Tuesday of 5.72 billion euros ($6.58 billi
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-04Coca-Cola Europacific shares lose fizz after interim results
Proactive
Coca-Cola Europacific shares lose fizz after interim results
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (LSE:CCEP, NASDAQ:CCEP) was hit by profit-taking after the drinks bottler reported higher first-half profit and reaffirmed its full-year guidance. The shares fell 4.3% to 7,710p, having hit an all-time high in the run-up to the interim results. Revenue increased 4.4% to €10.7 billion in the six months to 3 July, or 6.1% on a comparable currency-neutral basis. Reported operating profit rose 6.9% to €1.5 billion, while diluted earnings per share climbed 9.1% to €2.17. However, second-quarter revenue growth slowed to 2.5%, or 3.3% excluding currency movements. Revenue per unit case edged up just 0.1%, even as volumes grew 3.2% after adjusting for trading days. In Europe, quarterly volumes increased 2.3%, supported by warmer weather in June and the company's FIFA World Cup marketing campaign. Asia-Pacific volumes rose 5%, driven by the Philippines and a recovery in Indonesia. Chief executive Damian Gammell said the consumer environment remained challenging, while the full impact of the conflict in the Middle East was uncertain. The group retained its guidance for currency-neutral revenue growth of between 3% and 4% in the 2026 financial year, alongside operating profit growth of around 7%. It also continues to expect free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners has completed €593 million of its planned €1 billion share buyback.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-04Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc Announces Results for The Six Months Ended 3 July 2026
ACCESS Newswire
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc Announces Results for The Six Months Ended 3 July 2026
UXBRIDGE, ENGLAND / ACCESS Newswire / August 4, 2026 / Strong first half performance; full-year guidance reaffirmed * Volume disclosed on a reported basis which includes six additional consumption days versus the comparative period. On a days adjusted basis Group volumes grew by 2.2% (Europe: +1.6%; APS: +3.5%)[4]. Volume % throughout the release refers to days adjusted movements unless otherwise stated. DAMIAN GAMMELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SAID: "We delivered a strong first half, with balanced revenue growth, continued share gains and disciplined cost and cash management. Our performance reflects the strength of our broad beverage portfolio, the consumer demand for value and the relevance of our innovation across faster-growing categories such as zero sugar, energy and hydration, supported by quality in-market execution and exciting activations including the FIFA World Cup. "While the consumer environment remains challenging, and the full impact of the ongoing situation in the Middle East remains uncertain, our first half performance demonstrates the resilience of our business and the strength of our growth model. "We are reaffirming our full-year guidance and remain focused on our strategic priorities which include; expanding cooler coverage, winning more customers and accelerating growth in the Philippines and Indonesia. "We are actively managing pricing, promotions, discretionary spend and efficiencies, alongside record investment, with a focus on AI, technology and our supply chain, to drive future growth. We are confident we have the right strategy, the execution discipline and the brand partnerships to deliver on our mid-term objectives and create continued value for shareholders." ___________________________ Note: All footnotes included alongside the ‘About CCEP' section *First half interim dividend per share of €0.82 (declared at Q1 & paid in May), calculated as 40% of the FY25 dividend Volume disclosed on a reported basis which includes six additional consumption days versus the comparative period. On a days adjusted basis Group volumes grew by 2.2% (Europe: +1.6%; APS: +3.5%)[4]. Winning today, creating tomorrow: delivering against our strategic priorities Broaden total beverage portfolio Continued focus on innovation in zeros; H1 volumes up ~10% Strong Coke Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine performance post relaunch Sports +12% driven by Powerade inno…Read full documentShow less
UXBRIDGE, ENGLAND / ACCESS Newswire / August 4, 2026 / Strong first half performance; full-year guidance reaffirmed * Volume disclosed on a reported basis which includes six additional consumption days versus the comparative period. On a days adjusted basis Group volumes grew by 2.2% (Europe: +1.6%; APS: +3.5%)[4]. Volume % throughout the release refers to days adjusted movements unless otherwise stated. DAMIAN GAMMELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SAID: "We delivered a strong first half, with balanced revenue growth, continued share gains and disciplined cost and cash management. Our performance reflects the strength of our broad beverage portfolio, the consumer demand for value and the relevance of our innovation across faster-growing categories such as zero sugar, energy and hydration, supported by quality in-market execution and exciting activations including the FIFA World Cup. "While the consumer environment remains challenging, and the full impact of the ongoing situation in the Middle East remains uncertain, our first half performance demonstrates the resilience of our business and the strength of our growth model. "We are reaffirming our full-year guidance and remain focused on our strategic priorities which include; expanding cooler coverage, winning more customers and accelerating growth in the Philippines and Indonesia. "We are actively managing pricing, promotions, discretionary spend and efficiencies, alongside record investment, with a focus on AI, technology and our supply chain, to drive future growth. We are confident we have the right strategy, the execution discipline and the brand partnerships to deliver on our mid-term objectives and create continued value for shareholders." ___________________________ Note: All footnotes included alongside the ‘About CCEP' section *First half interim dividend per share of €0.82 (declared at Q1 & paid in May), calculated as 40% of the FY25 dividend Volume disclosed on a reported basis which includes six additional consumption days versus the comparative period. On a days adjusted basis Group volumes grew by 2.2% (Europe: +1.6%; APS: +3.5%)[4]. Winning today, creating tomorrow: delivering against our strategic priorities Broaden total beverage portfolio Continued focus on innovation in zeros; H1 volumes up ~10% Strong Coke Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine performance post relaunch Sports +12% driven by Powerade innovation & activation (inc. launch in Indonesia) Strong growth in Energy supported by wider distribution & successful innovation e.g.Viking Berry; share +230bps Win through execution Biggest ever FIFA World Cup activation; over 500k displays >80k new coolers added (~5% total increase) driving distribution & mix New customer wins including; Parkdean Resorts & Papa John's (GB), Dominos (Aus) & Marriott Deposit Return Scheme launched in Portugal; cross border recycling programme launched across Pacific Islands Sharpen competitiveness Innovative cross-channel promotions driving engagement Efficiencies drove margin expansion with further reduction in opex % of revenue Scaling up new shared service capability in Manila; now over 250 colleagues Scale Southeast Asia growth engine Indonesia sparkling volumes in growth - supported by new RTM model & innovation e.g. Sprite Nipis Mint & Coke Zero Vanilla Continued profitable topline momentum in the Philippines; EBIT margin close to 10% target New Philippines facility on track to start production in 2027 Unlock growth with AI & tech S/4HANA deployment on track & progressing well AI & data training workshops for 8,000 colleagues KIRA, our agentic AI application generating deeper brand insights & enabling faster market decisions Enhanced promo evaluation & pricing tools supporting more sophisticated Revenue & Margin Growth Management Great brands, great people, great execution, done sustainably H1 & Q2 Revenue Highlights[1] H1 Revenue: Reported +4.4%; FXN +6.1% Remain the #1 value creator[5] in retail, delivering more revenue growth for customers than any FMCG peers NARTD category[5] remains resilient: value +4%, volume +3% CCEP total value share[5] +20bps led by +30bps improvement in Europe, partly offset by 30bps decline in APS Transactions slightly behind volume growth; ahead in APS & behind in Europe, primarily reflecting growth of large format packs Volume +2.2%[4],[6]- By geography: Away from Home (AFH) +1.6%, Home +3.5% Europe: AFH -0.6% (Q1: -1.2%), Home +3.1% (Q1: +3.1%) APS: AFH +4.0% (Q1: +2.5%), Home +5.0% (Q1: +2.4%) Revenue per unit case +0.4%[2],[3] reflects positive headline pricing, promotional optimisation & positive pack mix, partly offset by Suntory alcohol exit Q2 Revenue: Reported +2.5%; FXN +3.3% Volume +3.2%[4],[6] - By geography: Europe +2.3% supported by great activation especially around FIFA World Cup & favourable weather in June - reflected in continued share improvement APS +5.0% reflecting: - By channel: AFH +2.8%, Home +4.3% Europe: AFH +0.5%, Home +3.6% APS: AFH +5.5%, Home +7.5% Revenue per unit case +0.1%[2],[3] Volume %s refer to days adjusted movements. H1 Highlights & FY26 Guidance[1] H1 Highlights Operating profit: Reported +6.9%; Comparable FXN +8.1% Comparable free cash flow: €435m reflecting solid performance (net cash flows from operating activities of €1,035m) Dividend per share €0.82 (declared Q1, paid in Q2) calculated as ~40% of FY25 dividend FY26 guidance reaffirmed[1] Outlook for FY26 remains unchanged & reflects our current assessment of market conditions. Unless stated otherwise, guidance is on a comparable & FX-neutral basis. (Based on current spot rates, FX represents a full year headwind of ~40 basis points to revenue & ~10 basis points to operating profit) Revenue: growth of 3% to 4% Cost of sales per UC: comparable growth of ~1.5% Operating profit: growth of ~7% Comparable effective tax rate: ~26% CAPEX: ~5% of revenue (including leases) Comparable free cash flow: at least €1.7bn Dividend payout ratio: ~50%[7] based on comparable EPS Share buyback: €1bn over the course of the year; €593m complete as at 31 July SECOND QUARTER & FIRST HALF REVENUE PERFORMANCE BY GEOGRAPHY[1] All values are unaudited and all volume %s refer to days adjusted movements. FBN[8] H1 low single-digit volume increase; all markets growing in Q2, including France now cycling sugar tax, reflecting great execution & favourable weather. Double-digit growth in Monster driven by innovation, distribution gains & new listings in France, Sweden & the Netherlands. France sugar tax contributed to decline in Coca-Cola Original Taste, offset by double-digit growth of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. Strong growth in Powerade, Sprite & Chaudfontaine. H1 revenue/UC[10] growth driven by headline price increase, French sugar tax (March 2025) & positive mix driven by Monster & growth in small packs. Germany H1 volume in slight decline reflecting continued consumer focus on affordability & value for money. Double-digit growth in Coca-Cola Zero Sugar & Zero sugar flavours partly offset declines in Coca-Cola Original Taste. Strong Monster growth supported by Zero variants & innovation e.g.Viking Berry. Good growth in Powerade driven by new pack formats, flavour extensions & FIFA World Cup activation. H1 revenue/UC[10] growth driven by positive brand & pack mix as well as annualisation of headline price increase implemented in Q3 last year. Great Britain H1 mid single-digit volume growth reflecting great FIFA World Cup activation & favourable weather in Q2. Strong volume growth in Coca-Cola Zero Sugar driven by launch of Cherry Float. Continued Diet Coke momentum, supported by new Cherry variant & Devil Wears Prada collaboration. Double-digit Monster growth supported by innovation e.g.Viking Berry & Ultra Vice Guava. Volumes also benefited from new Smartwater listings & growth in Powerade driven by new pack formats, flavour extensions & FIFA World Cup activation. H1 revenue/UC[10] growth driven by headline price increase in Q2 & positive mix from Monster partly offset by water. Iberia[9] H1 low single-digit volume growth driven by strong Q2 across Home & AFH. Sports volume growth driven by growing distribution & new listings, as well as launch of Aquarius Extra. Double-digit RTD Tea growth reflected sustained Fuze Tea momentum strengthened by new QSR listing. Volume benefitted from good growth in Flavours, supported by launch of Fanta Exotic & Sprite Chill, as well as double-digit growth in Monster. H1 revenue/UC[10] growth driven by headline price increase partly offset by negative channel & pack mix from growth in QSR. Australia / Pacific[11] Mid single-digit volume increase (excluding alcohol) with growth in all markets (PNG & Pacific Islands growing double-digit). Revenue excluding alcohol +10%. Coke Trademark volume growth in H1 driven by strong growth in Coca-Cola Zero Sugar & improved performance in Coca-Cola Original Taste. Grinders coffee continued to deliver double-digit volume growth & is now #1 coffee bean brand in Grocery in Australia. Sprite performed well with mid single-digit growth supported by Zero. Double-digit Energy growth driven by continued strength of Ultra White & launch of both Lando Norris & Ultra Blue Hawaiian in Australia. Revenue/UC[10] reflects impact of Suntory exit in Australia & New Zealand. Excluding alcohol, revenue/UC grew low single-digit, supported by headline price increases & positive mix from growth of small pack formats partly offset by growth in Coffee. Southeast Asia[12] Solid mid single-digit volume growth in both the Philippines & Indonesia. Coke Trademark volume growth in the Philippines driven by continued strength of Coca-Cola Original Taste & double-digit increase in Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. Good growth in Sprite Zero and Royal following new campaign & launch of Grape & Lychee variants. High single-digit growth in Wilkins Pure water supported by new QSR listings. Sparkling volume growth in Indonesia driven by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta & Sprite, supported by innovation (Coca-Cola Zero Vanilla, Fanta Fruit Punch & Sprite Nipis Mint) & supported by the new RTM model. Encouraging early performance from recent launch of Powerade in the growing Sports category. Revenue/UC[10] growth driven by headline price increases in the Philippines implemented H2'25 offset by adverse mix from growth in Water. Q2 & H1 VOLUME PERFORMANCE BY CATEGORY[1],[4],[6] All values are unaudited and all volume %s refer to days adjusted movements. Coca-Cola® Q2: +2.1%; H1: +1.3% Solid growth driven by the launch of new variants (e.g. Cherry Float in Original Taste & Zero Sugar), 500ml cans & Zero Caffeine in new black & gold packaging underpinned by fantastic activation & execution (FIFA World Cup & Premier League campaigns). Growth in Coca-Cola Trademark led by Coke Zero Sugar +10.7%, with good growth across both Europe & APS. Coke Original Taste declined 2.6% with growth in APS offset by Europe. Improved Diet Coke performance supported by new Cherry flavour & Devil Wears Prada movie campaign. Flavours & Mixers Q2: +1.2%; H1: +1.1% Sprite H1 +5.9% with solid growth in Europe supported by the launch of Sprite Chill & limited-edition flavour variants in GB. Growth in APS reflects strong growth of Sprite Zero in the Philippines & the launch of Sprite Nipis Mint in Indonesia. Fanta H1 -0.6% with performance supported by growth in zero variants including new visual identity, upweighted meals activation, new flavours (e.g. Mango), pack introductions (e.g.1L Fruit Punch in Indonesia) & impactful Xbox campaigns. Water, Sports, RTD Tea & Coffee[13] Q2: +9.5%; H1: +5.6% Water +6.5% reflecting new Smartwater listings in GB, growth of Chaudfontaine in FBN & Wilkins Pure in the Philippines. H1 Sports +12.1% (Q2: +18%) driven by continued growth of Aquarius in Spain. Powerade grew double-digit driven by great FIFA World Cup activation, new packs, limited edition flavours & distribution gains. RTD -3.1% H1 (Q2: +1.9%) with Fuze Tea delivering strong growth in Spain offset by decline in Germany & Indonesia (where category is in decline). Other inc. Energy Q2: +7.4%; H1: +8.0% Energy grew +18.6% driven by innovation (e.g. Viking Berry & Ultra Blue Hawaiian), distribution gains, growth in multipacks & continued strength of original variants e.g. Ultra White. Energy share +230bps. ARTD momentum continued with launch of new Spiced rum Bacardi & Coke (Aus & GB), Absolut Sprite Pineapple & new sleek cans. Exit of Suntory alcohol distribution in Australia & NZ impacted volumes as previously announced. Conference Call 4 August 2026 at 12:00 BST, 13:00 CEST & 7:00 a.m. EDT; accessible via www.cocacolaep.com Replay & transcript will be available at www.cocacolaep.com as soon as possible Financial Calendar Third quarter trading update: 3 November 2026 Financial calendar available here: https://ir.cocacolaep.com/financial-calendar/ Contacts Investor Relations Media Relations Contacts [email protected] About CCEP Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is one of the world's leading consumer goods companies. We make, move and sell some of the world's most loved brands - serving nearly 600 million consumers and helping over 4 million customers across 31 countries grow. We combine the strength and scale of a large, multi-national business with an expert, local knowledge of the customers we serve and communities we support. The Company is currently listed on Euronext Amsterdam, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange and on the Spanish Stock Exchanges, and a constituent of both the Nasdaq 100 and FTSE 100 indices, trading under the symbol CCEP (ISIN No. GB00BDCPN049) For more information about CCEP, please visit www.cocacolaep.com & follow CCEP on LinkedIn _______________________ Refer to ‘Note regarding the presentation of alternative performance measures' for further details & to ‘Supplementary Financial Information' for a reconciliation of reported to comparable results; Change percentages against prior year equivalent period unless stated otherwise A unit case equals approximately 5.678 litres or 24 8-ounce servings Comparable & FX-neutral Comparable volume growth rates are calculated on an Average Daily Sales (ADS) basis External data sources: Nielsen & IRI Period 6 YTD Adjusted for consumption days shift with six additional consumption days H1'26 versus H1'25 Dividends subject to Board approval Includes France, Monaco, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden & Iceland Includes Spain, Portugal & Andorra Revenue per unit case Includes Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea Includes Philippines & Indonesia RTD refers to ready to drink Click on, or paste the following link into your web browser, to view the associated PDF document. http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/0906P_1-2026-8-3.pdf This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact [email protected] or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-04Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in Coca-Cola Europacific Partners? Here are five stocks we like better. Strong first-half financial performance: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners reported revenue of €10.7 billion, up 6.1%, while operating profit rose 8.1% to €1.5 billion and diluted EPS increased 10.6% to €2.20. Management reaffirmed its 2026 guidance despite six fewer trading days in the second half and Middle East-related cost uncertainty. Growth concentrated in high-performing categories: Zero-sugar volume increased 10%, sports and hydration rose 12%, and energy volume climbed 19%; Monster gained 230 basis points of market share. The company also added more than 80,000 coolers and expanded customer partnerships to support future sales. Shareholder returns and regional expansion remain priorities: CCEP has completed about €600 million of its planned €1 billion 2026 share repurchase and continues targeting at least €1.7 billion in free cash flow. Management identified Indonesia and the Philippines as an emerging growth engine, with a new Philippine facility expected to begin production in 2027. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (NASDAQ:CCEP) reported higher first-half revenue, operating profit and earnings per share, citing broad-based volume growth, market-share gains and continued momentum in zero-sugar, energy, sports and hydration beverages. Chief Executive Officer Damian Gammell said the company delivered a “strong first half” as brand partnerships, customer relationships and in-market execution supported growth across its European and Australia-Pacific operations. Management reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, while noting that the second half includes six fewer trading days than the first half. → SpaceX’s First Earnings Report Could Decide Whether Shorts or Bulls Have Control The ‘Other’ Coke Stock Quietly Hits a Record High Unless otherwise stated, the company presented figures on a comparable and foreign-exchange-neutral basis. CCEP reported first-half revenue of €10.7 billion, up 6.1%. Volume increased 5.6%, or 2.2% after adjusting for six additional consumption days in the first half. Growth occurred in both Europe and Australia-Pacific, and Gammell said June was the company’s largest volume month on record. → Financials Hit Record Highs as the AI Trade Unravels—Can They Keep Leading? Why Chemours Co (NYSE:CC) Stoc…Read full documentShow less
Interested in Coca-Cola Europacific Partners? Here are five stocks we like better. Strong first-half financial performance: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners reported revenue of €10.7 billion, up 6.1%, while operating profit rose 8.1% to €1.5 billion and diluted EPS increased 10.6% to €2.20. Management reaffirmed its 2026 guidance despite six fewer trading days in the second half and Middle East-related cost uncertainty. Growth concentrated in high-performing categories: Zero-sugar volume increased 10%, sports and hydration rose 12%, and energy volume climbed 19%; Monster gained 230 basis points of market share. The company also added more than 80,000 coolers and expanded customer partnerships to support future sales. Shareholder returns and regional expansion remain priorities: CCEP has completed about €600 million of its planned €1 billion 2026 share repurchase and continues targeting at least €1.7 billion in free cash flow. Management identified Indonesia and the Philippines as an emerging growth engine, with a new Philippine facility expected to begin production in 2027. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (NASDAQ:CCEP) reported higher first-half revenue, operating profit and earnings per share, citing broad-based volume growth, market-share gains and continued momentum in zero-sugar, energy, sports and hydration beverages. Chief Executive Officer Damian Gammell said the company delivered a “strong first half” as brand partnerships, customer relationships and in-market execution supported growth across its European and Australia-Pacific operations. Management reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, while noting that the second half includes six fewer trading days than the first half. → SpaceX’s First Earnings Report Could Decide Whether Shorts or Bulls Have Control The ‘Other’ Coke Stock Quietly Hits a Record High Unless otherwise stated, the company presented figures on a comparable and foreign-exchange-neutral basis. CCEP reported first-half revenue of €10.7 billion, up 6.1%. Volume increased 5.6%, or 2.2% after adjusting for six additional consumption days in the first half. Growth occurred in both Europe and Australia-Pacific, and Gammell said June was the company’s largest volume month on record. → Financials Hit Record Highs as the AI Trade Unravels—Can They Keep Leading? Why Chemours Co (NYSE:CC) Stock is the Recipe for Gains Revenue per case rose 0.4%, compared with nearly 4% growth in the prior-year period. Headline price increases, promotional optimization, energy-category growth and additional cooler placements helped revenue per case, but those factors were partly offset by increased sales of larger formats in Europe. The company also faced a revenue headwind from its Suntory alcohol exit in Australia-Pacific, which represented slightly more than 1% of total first-half revenue. Excluding alcohol, Australia-Pacific revenue rose 10%. Operating profit was €1.5 billion, up 8.1%. Operating margin rose about 30 basis points to 13.8%. Cost of sales per unit case increased 0.6%, below the company’s full-year expectation of around 1.5%. Operating expenses represented 21.4% of revenue, improving about 40 basis points, aided by discretionary-spending savings and productivity gains. Diluted earnings per share rose 10.6% to €2.20. Free cash flow was €435 million, slightly above the prior-year period. The company said it has completed about €600 million of its planned €1 billion full-year share repurchase program. It continues to target comparable free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion for 2026. → Why Rare Earth Processing Could Be the Real 2027 Opportunity Gammell said CCEP is expanding its portfolio in faster-growing categories while continuing to invest in core Coca-Cola brands. Zero-sugar volume increased 10% in the first half, supported by Coke Zero Sugar, Sprite, Fanta, sports drinks and energy offerings. Sports and hydration volume rose 12%, with Aquarius performing strongly in Iberia and Powerade posting double-digit growth, supported by FIFA-related activation. Energy volume increased 19%, while Monster grew at roughly twice the category rate and gained 230 basis points of share, according to the company. Management also highlighted growth in water, including smartwater in Great Britain and Wilkins in the Philippines. In Australia, Grinders became the top coffee-bean brand in retail, with sales exceeding AUD 100 million. New product launches included Coca-Cola Cherry Float in Great Britain, Sprite Chill, Coke Zero Caffeine Free, new Fanta zero-sugar flavors, Sprite Nipis Mint and Coke Zero Vanilla in Indonesia, and Powerade’s introduction in Indonesia. Gammell said 500-milliliter “Supercans” had exceeded the company’s expectations, particularly among younger consumers. CCEP added more than 80,000 coolers during the year to date, a 5% increase, and more than 10% above the level in place when its accelerated cold-availability program began last year. Chief Financial Officer Ed Walker said well-placed coolers can generate returns within a couple of years, with connected equipment providing information on purchases, product assortment and sales rates. The company cited customer wins including selected McDonald’s markets, Domino’s in Australia, Parkdean Resorts, Papa John’s and Leeds United in Great Britain, as well as Marriott International. The Marriott agreement covers more than 600 hotels in CCEP markets and is scheduled to begin rolling out in the second half. Gammell said the company’s FIFA World Cup 2026 program was its largest activation effort to date. CCEP delivered more than 500,000 displays, activated more than 47,000 outlets among its top European home-market customers, distributed 163 million packs featuring Panini promotions, and produced more than 135 million team and player cans. More than 1.3 million FIFA items were awarded to shoppers through purchases of its products. Management described Indonesia and the Philippines as an emerging Southeast Asia growth engine. In Indonesia, sparkling beverages continued to outgrow the overall category, helped by a revised go-to-market model, distribution-partner execution and product launches. Gammell said tea remains an area of weakness, though the company expects continued sparkling growth in the second half. In the Philippines, a Coke Zero campaign supported double-digit volume growth, while Wilkins benefited from new listings. CCEP said construction of a new Philippines facility remains on track for production in 2027 and that local margins are approaching its 10% target. During the question-and-answer session, executives said second-half trading had started well, with favorable weather in many markets and momentum continuing from June. However, they maintained guidance rather than raising it, citing five months remaining in the year, six fewer trading days in the second half, and uncertainty around costs related to the Middle East. Walker said the majority of those costs are expected to fall in the second half and are incorporated in existing guidance. Looking ahead, Gammell said CCEP expects continued benefits from innovation, cooler placements, customer wins, pricing and revenue-growth management, as well as investments in technology and artificial intelligence. The company is using AI tools to analyze commercial and manufacturing data, support promotional pricing decisions and improve supply-chain productivity. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is a major independent bottler and distributor of nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages, operating under a long-standing franchise relationship with The Coca-Cola Company. The business manufactures, bottles, sells and delivers a broad portfolio of global and local beverage brands, including still and sparkling soft drinks, waters, juices, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. Its activities encompass production, packaging, marketing and route-to-market distribution for retail, foodservice, convenience and vending customers. The company was created through the combination of Coca-Cola European Partners and Coca-Cola Amatil in 2021, bringing together beverage operations across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.
TranscriptFY2026 Q22026-08-04FY2026 Q2 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 135 paragraphs
FY2026 Q2 earnings call transcript
Hello, thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Half-Year 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead, Sarah.
Thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Damian Gammell, our CEO, and our CFO, Ed Walker. First, a reminder of our cautionary statements. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today's release, as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in the reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch, and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian. We will then turn the call over to your questions. Unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and FX-neutral basis throughout. Volume movements, unless otherwise stated, adjust for the impact of six more consumption days in the half, when compared to the same period last year.
Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. You will see on the first slide of the presentation a picture of one of the limited-edition two million Champion gold cans to celebrate our Spanish market winning the World Cup. On that note, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian, who found one of these cans selling online for EUR 20.
Thank you, Sarah. I didn't buy it, thank you. Thank you all for joining. We delivered a strong first half. I really want to start by thanking our colleagues for their focus, hard work, and continued dedication to CCEP, and most importantly, to our customers. Our people and our strong brand partnerships continue to drive us forward. We've seen broad-based growth across markets and categories, continued share gains, robust profit delivery, and strong cash generation. Our value creation strategy is working. We are creating value for our customers. We are a consistent top- and bottom-line compounder. We are generating significant cash, which is supporting record investment behind future growth; we are increasing our returns to shareholders. Looking back over the past three years, we have generated EUR 4.4 billion of value for our retail customers and returned EUR 4.3 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
We operate in a large, attractive, and growing beverage market. NARTD is a EUR 180 billion category globally and is expected to grow 3%-4% annually through to 2030. We are well-positioned in the fast-growing categories and across a diverse channel and geographic footprint, including particularly attractive long-term opportunities in Southeast Asia. Looking now at our results, the business continues to perform well. We're pleased to have delivered a strong first half with balanced top-line growth across our markets, continued share gains, and robust profit delivery. We're executing well and innovating at pace, focusing on the categories where consumers are most engaged, including zero sugar, energy, sports, and hydration. As a result, we continue to lead value creation for our customers.
We're staying disciplined on costs with our productivity mindset and efficiency programs continuing to support profit expansion, strong free cash flow, and investment in our brands, supply chain, technology, and our people, also enabling us to grow our shareholder returns. We've laid strong foundations through our commercial plans, our innovation pipeline, our in-market execution, and the ongoing development of our strategic capabilities. We are confident in reaffirming our guidance for this year and in the longer-term opportunity ahead. Turning now to the key metrics. You can see a well-balanced performance across the business. Revenue grew strongly with great execution across our markets, positive revenue per case, and strong growth in volumes, particularly in Q2, despite Easter falling into Q1 this year. June was actually our biggest volume month ever. We also grew value share by 20 basis points, driven by gains in Europe.
Our customer relationships remain a real source of competitive advantage. We continue to maintain high service levels, and we're proud to remain the number one retail value creator, which is important because creating value for our customers is central to how we will grow sustainably. Operating profit reflects the quality of our top line, as we benefited from stronger volumes as well as disciplined cost management and our ongoing productivity agenda. Cash generation remains a core strength of CCEP. We delivered strong comparable free cash flow in the first half and continue to invest behind future growth, while also returning cash to shareholders through our dividend and our share buyback program. Overall, the first half demonstrates the strength of our model. We are growing, investing, improving productivity, and growing shareholder returns, all within a disciplined framework.
We delivered revenue of EUR 10.7 billion, an increase of 6.1%, with volumes growing 5.6% or 2.2% on a day-adjusted basis, with volume growth in both Europe and APS. Revenue per case grew at 0.4% against a strong comparative of almost 4% growth in the first half of last year. Headline price increases, promotional optimization, and positive mix benefits from the growth of energy and more coolers were partially offset by the growth of larger volume formats in Europe. In addition, we also faced a headwind from the Suntory alcohol exit in APS, and this is worth just over 1% of total revenue during the first half. In fact, in Australia Pacific, revenue excluding alcohol grew a really healthy 10%.
Cost of sales per unit case increased by 0.6%, lower than our full year guidance of around 1.5%, and this largely reflects both a higher half one comparable of 3.6% last year and with much of the absorption of the ongoing uncertain situation in the Middle East, still to land in half two. OpEx as a percentage of revenue was 21.4%, an improvement of around 40 basis points, supported by savings on discretionary spend and continued productivity gains. The combination of these factors drove operating profit of EUR 1.5 billion, up 8.1%, with an operating margin of 13.8%, up around 30 basis points on last year. Diluted earnings per share of EUR 2.20 was up 10.6%, supported by the share buyback with around EUR 600 million of the full-year EUR 1 billion now completed. Finally, free cash flow of EUR 435 million was slightly ahead of last year.
This was after investing in key projects, including more coolers, a new warm fill line for Powerade in Australia, new can fillers in Sweden, and the development of our exciting greenfield site in Manila, which is on schedule to begin production next year. We do remain on track to deliver comparable free cash flow of at least EUR 1.7 billion for the year. Our performance in the first half and a solid start to the second reinforce our confidence in the outlook for the full year, notwithstanding six fewer trading days in the second half. Today, we're reaffirming all elements of our full year 2026 guidance. Our 2026 guidance is in line with our midterm objectives, with a quick reminder of those here.
Our performance and the continued delivery of these midterm objectives come back to the execution of our focused and consistent strategy captured in these core priorities. Firstly, we're broadening our total portfolio, investing in faster-growing categories, and driving innovation across both established and emerging brands. We bring these brands to life in the market with great execution, whether that's through impactful on-shelf, differentiated points of interruption, cooler placements, or recent major activations such as the FIFA World Cup to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. Enhancement of our revenue and margin growth management, investment in commercial capabilities, and productivity improvements ensure we remain competitive. Our investments in the Philippines and Indonesia represent significant long-term opportunities to accelerate growth; we're encouraged by the progress we're making in both markets. We're unlocking growth through technology and AI.
These investments are helping us to generate new growth opportunities across the business, improve decision-making, enhance customer service, and increase our manufacturing efficiency. Our focus on these priorities is strengthening our business today and creating the foundations for growth and value creation for many years to come. Of course, all done sustainably. Briefly on that, we recently updated our sustainability goals to include the Philippines, something we explored in our recent ESG webinar and available for replay on our website. How are we getting on more broadly against these priorities? Our portfolio strategy is working. We're continuing to invest in the core whilst broadening our participation across faster-growing categories and occasions, including sports, energies, and Zeros, where we're seeing strong momentum, which I'll come back to shortly. We've seen a meaningful contribution to our growth from some great innovation in the first half.
On our Coke Trademark across Original Taste and Zeros, our new cherry variants, including Coca-Cola Cherry Float in GB, perform well. We continue to make good progress with small and more premium packs. The new 500 ml Supercans are proving to be a great success, especially with younger consumers. Watch this space for more to come. We welcome the return to growth for Diet Coke in GB, supported by the addition of Cherry and the collaboration with The Devil Wears Prada. Our flavors family has seen lots of exciting new introductions. From Royal Tru-Grape and Lychee in the Philippines, the Fantastic Nipis Mint in Indonesia, and the fun new visual identity for Fanta with Xbox gaming graphics. We are strengthening our presence in sports and hydration with volumes up 12%. Aquarius continues to drive strong growth in Iberia, while Powerade grew double-digits, supported by the FIFA activation.
This brand has also been recently introduced to Indonesia, where the sports category is already half the size of sparkling. Energy continues to outperform, with volumes up an incredible 19%. Monster growth is running at roughly twice the category rate. Our share was up 230 basis points, supported by innovations such as Viking Berry and strong activation around our motorsport partnerships with Oscar Piastri now featuring on the cans of Monster Green. Water is growing well, particularly in GB with Smartwater and in the Philippines with Wilkins. We have made fantastic progress in coffee in Australia, where Grinders is now the number one coffee bean brand in retail, with sales of over AUD 100 million. The common theme here is choice. More brands, more packs, more flavors, and more occasions focused on faster-growing categories.
That is helping us recruit consumers, increase frequency, and capture a greater share of the beverage spend. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen great momentum in the growth of zeros everywhere, whether in the Coke trademark, flavors with Sprite and Fanta, in hydration, or in energy. Both Coke Zero Caffeine Free, in its eye-catching new black and gold packaging, and Sprite Chill, with its refreshing glass of mint, have delivered beyond our expectations. With Sprite overall grown by 6%, supported by the Fantastic Sprite and Spicy campaigns. We have extended our range of zero-flavor flavors in Fanta and are seeing good growth in both zero-sugar sports drinks through Powerade and Aquarius and in energy, where the Monster Ultra range was up over 50%.
Overall, zero-sugar volumes increased by 10%. We expect strong growth going forward, with innovation offering more choice for consumers as they increasingly seek out healthier but exciting and great-tasting options. Execution is one of our most durable competitive advantages, and in half one, we turn brand strength and innovation into visible, measurable marketplace impact. One example is our cooler rollout plan, which is running well ahead. We have added more than 80,000 coolers this year, an increase of 5%, more than 10% since last year when we began our accelerated program to expand cold availability and grow instant consumption, which supports mix. We are continuing to win with customers and listings across markets, including Smartwater and FUZE Tea in McDonald's in selected markets. Domino's was a significant recent win in Australia, with the GB team winning Parkdean Resorts, Papa John's, and Leeds United.
This expands our coverage of English Premiership grounds to 80% and makes Ed, our CFO, a proud Yorkshireman, very happy. We've seen a terrific win for the whole system with Marriott International, including over 600 hotels in our markets, and that will start rolling out during half two. Beyond that, execution on our packaging collection progress continued. DRS has landed well in Portugal. We continue to prepare for GB next year, and we launched a cross-border recycling program across the Pacific Islands, all contributing to our decarbonization journey. Finally, we're bringing our brands to life through stronger activation, as you can see here on the Fanta and Xbox, and of course, through FIFA World Cup, which I'm keen to touch on next. World Cup 2026 has been our biggest activation program ever.
Providing a great example of how we work with The Coca-Cola Company, combining world-class assets with exceptional local execution at scale to create value for our customers and excitement for our consumers. We delivered more than 500,000 displays, with our field teams continuing to build momentum as the tournament progressed. All of our top European home customers executed the campaign, covering more than 47,000 outlets. We activated exclusive Panini sticker on-pack promotions with 163 million packs and produced more than 135 million team and player cans. Importantly, it just wasn't about brand awareness. The activation supported transactions, with more than 1.3 million FIFA items awarded to shoppers through the purchase of our brands. On to competitiveness. Sharpening competitiveness is not simply a cost agenda.
It is about building a faster business, one that is more efficient and more effective in serving our customers and consumers, and one that can be something and growing profitably. One important lever is revenue and margin growth management. We are continuing to use sharper insights, better promotional mechanics, and stronger pricing tools to balance value for consumers with profitable growth for our customers in CCEP. That is particularly important in an environment where many consumers remain focused on value. Promotions are a good example. They're not only about headline price but also, as the examples here demonstrate, about great promotional mechanics helping to drive higher incidents, whether that's through free meals in QSR, gifts with purchase, or prize-led campaigns for FUZE Tea and Coke Zero Sugar.
At the same time, we are building more scalable capabilities across the business, expanding integrated shared services with more than 1,500 colleagues, including now over 250 in Manila. This is all part of our broader productivity mindset. We are improving how we work, simplifying processes as we leverage AI, reducing OpEx, and reinvesting behind the capabilities that matter most across both commercial and our supply chain. Our markets in Southeast Asia are our fastest-growing within CCEP, as you saw earlier. In Indonesia, we made solid progress during the first half of this year, with Sparkling continuing to grow ahead of the total category. Our new launches, like Sprite Nipis Mint, Coke Zero Vanilla, and Powerade, are performing well and have contributed significantly to growth in Q2, following a great festive period.
This has been supported by our new go-to-market model, which is helping us strengthen execution and improve category participation with our distribution partners. In the Philippines, we've continued to see strong momentum. Our Coke Zero campaign focused around all-out [Non-English content], or all-out deliciousness, supported double-digit volume growth, and we've continued to see good momentum at Wilkins, our water brand, which is benefiting from new listings. We're also investing for future demand. Construction of our new facility remains on track for 2027, and this will provide additional capacity to support long-term profitable growth in the Philippines, with margins now approaching our 10% target. Taken together, Indonesia and the Philippines are becoming a scalable Southeast Asia growth engine for CCEP, combining strong category growth, improving execution, innovation momentum, and growing profitability. Just to talk a little bit to AI and tech. Our approach to AI is clear.
We are focused on a key number of strategic opportunities across the business, we are deliberately centered around growth. By way of few examples, it is providing enhanced analytics to optimize promotional pricing levels. It's supporting our insights team to analyze data to drive swifter commercial decisions. It's cleaning millions of pieces of manufacturing data in days rather than years, and it's helping key account managers prepare more effectively for customer conversations and is starting to enhance productivity as we leverage digital twins in our supply chain. What gives me confidence is that while we're seeing good progress against all our strategic priorities, we will keep coming back to demonstrate how we are strengthening our business today and creating foundations for tomorrow. We know, however, that we've got more to do.
We continue to broaden our portfolio, especially in zeros, bringing even more magic to the Coke Original taste and driving more innovation with new and exciting options coming from our brand partners. In Southeast Asia, we are encouraged by the early progress in Indonesia and the continued strength of the Philippines. Our focus is now to sustain that momentum and scale it into a long-term growth engine for CCEP. All of this whilst continuing to execute across our markets each and every day, whilst adapting even faster, leveraging data and tech across our business. As you've seen today, we're continuing to build on the consistent track record of delivery over the past 10 years. We've created significant value for customers, consumers, and shareholders, and we believe the opportunity ahead remains just as compelling.
We are growing across attractive categories and markets, broadening our portfolio, winning through execution, sharpening our competitiveness, scaling Southeast Asia, and unlocking new growth through data, technology, and AI. The strength of our first-half performance demonstrates the resilience of our business and the consistency of our growth model. While we have several key months to go and six fewer trading days in Q4, the second half has started well, giving us confidence in our full-year outlook and our ability to deliver on our medium-term objectives. We are winning today, and we are creating an even stronger platform for tomorrow. Thank you, everybody, and Ed and I would now be very happy to take your questions as I hand the call back over to you, Mel.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we kindly request only one question per analyst. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star one and one again. Our first question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies.
Afternoon, Damian, Ed, and Sarah. I appreciate it's a little bit too early to talk about 2027 guidance; I'd love to pick your brains as to how you're thinking philosophically about growth in next year. On the one hand, you're going to be lapping two really good summers. You've got FIFA. You've got this very strong innovation cycle that we've just been through. On the other hand, you're broadening your portfolio; you're taking a share. Southeast Asia seems to be waking up; AI is moving from a productivity tool to a growth engine. What are the two or three things that you're really excited about, Damian, as you go into 2027?
Thanks, Ed. We'll talk later in the year with more specificity around 2027. Clearly we're excited about the second half of this year, just to maybe bring it back to 2026. As I said, the second half of this year started well. We've continued to see good weather across most of our markets. We've got a lot of good campaigns coming, whether that's around the Bundesliga, EPL, or our new icon look and feel for Coke Zero. We're only at the beginning with Coke Zero Zero. Super cans are new. A lot of the innovation that we've brought to market in 2026. Really, we'll see the full-year benefit of that in 2027; that definitely gives me some excitement and confidence.
I think the second point I'd make, Ed, is that clearly when we were preparing for FIFA, we were working very closely with the Coca-Cola Company to have a really exciting asset for the same period next year. I'm really excited about that. Obviously, for various reasons, I can't get into more detail with it, as you'd appreciate, we have been working hard to make sure we bring a similar level of excitement to our consumers for 2027. You're right about Asia. I think we start to see that being a material player in our growth algorithm. It's great to see Indonesia performing, again, a lot of the innovation we've brought this year will continue into 2027.
Yeah, to your point around AI and tech, certainly we will see net revenue per case playing a bigger part of our story in the second half of this year. We'll clearly continue to look at pricing opportunities as we exit 2026, which again, will give us a bit of momentum into 2027. Excited about the second half of this year and looking forward to an even more exciting 2027. Also, some of the foundational work we've been doing around cooler placements and some of those customer wins. They remain in our base into 2027, and that also supports our growth objective. Thanks, Ed.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Ford, BNP Paribas.
Afternoon, all. Thanks for the question. The first one is just to pick up on something you just mentioned there, Damian, on the revenue per case kind of evolution. Particularly if we focus just on the Europe performance, Q2, I think, is +1.3% revenue per unit case, kind of in line with what we saw in Q1. Obviously Q1 was impacted to a degree by the earlier time of Easter. Just how much of the sort of slightly softer revenue per case is reflecting the sort of tougher consumer environment and the focus on affordability and large packs? Is there something else in there, and should we expect the kind of European revenue per unit case to also sequentially improve? Clearly in APS, we'll fully cycle the Beam Suntory impact there, but specifically on Europe, what are your thoughts on the second half?
Very, very quickly, just if I can follow up on the Philippines. We're cycling, I think, as we go into Q3, the quite devastating typhoons you saw in July and August last year. Any update on how July and potentially the first couple of days of August have trended in the Philippines? Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. Maybe I'll deal with the second part of your question and then hand it back to Ed for your questions around NSR per case. As I said, we're pleased with the way half two started across CCEP, including the Philippines. So far we haven't seen similar weather that we had to deal with last year. That will definitely help as we look at Q3. Generally, the momentum we saw in June is continuing across our business, which gives us a lot of excitement for a solid Q3. I'll hand it back to Ed on the NSR per-case question. Ed?
Thanks, Matt. On the revenue per case, I'm looking specifically at Europe. Yes, absolutely, as you said, we grew 1.4% per case in the quarter, and that was quite nicely balanced between rate and mix. One thing we need to remember is that last year, for the same time period, Q2 2025, we grew 4.2% per case. We're cycling a very strong revenue-per-case growth from the previous year. As we look at the year as a whole, evening out the impact between different quarters, we still expect a good balance between volume growth and revenue per case growth. In Europe specifically, if you look at Q2, we continue to see a healthy brand mix coming through.
We did have a bit more adversity in pack mix; that's really as a result of the success of a lot of the activation we did, with promotions and particularly around FIFA. That's probably Q2 specifically. When we look at the rate, as I said, when we look at the year as a whole, we think that will be fairly balanced. We don't see any reduction in our ability to take price in our markets, as always, as we've talked about before, these pricing decisions within the quarter are quite dynamic and are always influenced by the period that we're cycling. We continue to focus on affordability, as we talked about last year, making sure we have the right packs at the right price for all of our consumers.
That we give consumers great experiences through either our packs, through our innovation, or some of the great activations we saw around FIFA, like Panini, as Damian mentioned earlier.
I just think to build on that, on our last call, we've been very explicit about trying to balance pricing with value-adds, because we think obviously the brands that we have bring a different level of excitement to our consumers. What you'll see in Q2 and into Q3, a lot of our on-floor activation, particularly in retail, is to win, to collect, and to get access to tickets. We think that's important. While it offers value, it also brings excitement. We think with the brands that we have, that's what consumers and indeed customers are looking for. We'll continue to look at a balance of affordability to price value. We've got a lot of premium plays out there. A lot of our innovation is more in the premium space, Super Cans, and Coke Zero Zero.
Then we'll shift some more of those promotional funds back into value add. We see that they are responding really well. No surprise, the Gold Can for the Spanish team has been a huge hit in Iberia. Elements like that we think are something that brands like Coke can do better than anybody else, and we'll keep leveraging them.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog, Goldman Sachs.
Thank you. Hi, everyone. I had a question on your volumes. I guess I was hoping to get a little more color on your volumes in the quarter, and maybe how they trended relative to your internal expectations. Damian, you mentioned both the World Cup and favorable weather were two drivers of strength. Hoping maybe you could give us a sense of the lift you saw from this and maybe any other call-outs that surprised you from your perspective. Also, your guidance implies a decent deceleration of growth in the back half. I guess I am trying to understand how much was possibly pulled forward into Q2 versus conservatism on your part. Finally, maybe just expected phasing of growth between Q3 and Q4. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Bonnie. I can say there was zero pull forward or impact on Q3, really healthy volume growth across the quarter. I would say it was a quarter where we delivered growth from a geographic perspective, very balanced. From a channel perspective, we were pleased. And also, as Ed mentioned, from a pack perspective. It was broad across brands and packages. We came in with a lot of momentum into the third quarter. As I said, it started off well for us, zero impact on the growth from Q2 into Q3, which is great. In fact, probably some of the people who are working the hardest at CCEP are our supply chain colleagues, as we continue to meet that increased demand coming out of the second half and rebuild inventories. Overall, very pleased.
I would say obviously FIFA is a call-out just in terms of its scale and impact. I would say some of the new innovations are doing better than we expected, like Coke Zero Sugar. I think the Supercan has surprised us, really connecting with a different user, and I think that's working really well. And obviously we talked to some of the innovators in Asia, but particularly Powerade in Indonesia, who surprised us to the upside. That's great. Quite broad, which is exciting. Quite sustainable into Q3, Q4, and as I mentioned to Ed's point, into next year. You could call us conservative. Ed and I looked at our numbers for the first half of the year and reflected on year-to-go. There are still five months to go. Clearly, we'll be able to update everybody in November on how we see the full year.
At this stage, given the volatility that we've seen, particularly on the cost side, it's great to be able to reaffirm what was pretty good guidance anyway. That gives us a lot of excitement for the second half.
All right. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Simon Hales, Citi.
Thanks. Hi, Damian. Hi, Ed. Hi, Sarah. Damian, I wonder if I could just sort of pick your brains a little bit further on your comments around the H2 guidance and potentially some of perhaps the prudence you're building in there. I'm just still trying to square the circle because, from everything you've said today, clearly Q3 has started strongly. Momentum is very good. It's obviously through June. That's continued into July and perhaps early August. We've got perhaps lower promo coming in Europe in H2. Generally, as you said, higher revenue per case, further cost efficiencies coming through. Yet overall, comparable EBIT growth is expected to slow to probably around 6% and change in H2 to meet your guidance. You just flagged there your worries perhaps around some of the cost volatility we're seeing.
Are you really being pretty conservative because of the higher COGS per case we're seeing in the second half, and is that really driven by what you're seeing out of the Middle East in particular? I'm just trying to get a bit more of a flavor as to what's driving that potential conservatism on your part.
We look at the year in total, Simon. I know everybody gets excited by quarters and the half-year outlook when you take the first half and you deduct it from our guidance. You guys do the numbers as well as, if not better than, us. I suppose really it just comes down to we still have five big months. We still have to get through what is a really good summer for us in Europe, and we're excited about that. Then we move into spring and summer in our Australia and New Zealand businesses. It more reflects a kind of timeframe that we still have five, which we hope will be great months to go. That was it, really. There's nothing specific. When we look at our hedging, we're in a good place. We look at our pricing; we're in a good place.
We would like to see a little bit more NSR per case progression in half two. We're clearly working on that with our commercial teams. From a listings perspective, we're in good shape. There's a lot to be positive about. We just felt with five months to go, sticking to our guidance is probably the best decision at the moment. Obviously, should that change, we'll update it as we go through the year anyway, as normal. Nothing specific, more really that we felt we were just halfway through the game. Maybe we are a little bit conservative, but maybe that's our way a little bit. I don't know, Ed, you want to comment?
Well, maybe just one point to add. We have to remember, of course, that there were more selling days in the first half than the second half. When we look at our reported revenue and our reported profit, they reflect that. Obviously, that means a few less selling days in the second half. That's all as per our plan and how we anticipated the year would roll out at the beginning of the year. I think on the Middle East, as you mentioned, we're in a good place in terms of our coverage for the year, but the majority of the costs will fall in the second half. That's all built into our guidance.
Obviously, given the timing of that, given we're always a little bit more hedged in the near term than the midterm, we will see more of that cost in the second half. Of course, the Middle East itself is still an open item in terms of how it really affects all of us for the rest of the year. Just a couple of points there that might help, Simon.
Brilliant. Thanks, guys.
Our next question comes from the line of Andrea Pistacchi, Bank of America.
Yes, thank you. I have a question on Indonesia, please, which delivered a strong quarter, albeit against a pretty easy comparison base. Is there anything in sort of the performance of this quarter and the previous ones that really is maybe increasing your confidence that the turnaround is gaining traction beyond the comp effects? Do you think now Indonesia is in a situation where it can start sustaining positive volume growth?
Great question. We're really excited about Indonesia for the near and long term, obviously, just given some of the macros that we all know about. I think when we look at our business, we started the year off with a great festive, and that's continued into Q2. Couple of drivers of that, one is structural. We've spent some time reorganizing our route to market and moving to a more efficient distributor model. We firmly believe that's a driver of growth for the long term. We've brought more innovation, whether it's on the mint side with Sprite or on Powerade, that's definitely driving growth. Our underlying performance on sparkling is actually better. When you look at the consolidated number, there is still a little bit of weakness on tea. That's something that we need to deal with as we get through the second half of this year.
What that really shows is where we've been focused, which is on our sparkling portfolio, which has continued to go from strength to strength by quarter. There are a lot of moving parts in Indo, so I think, while we're super excited, we're very happy with the route-to-market change. I'm particularly pleased for our team in Indo. They've been working through a lot of change. It's great for them to see the positives, particularly on sparkling month after month, quarter after quarter. We expect that to continue through half two and then into 2027. Obviously our objective for that business is that it does become a consistent driver of revenue volume for CCEP. We're starting to see that this year. Clearly we can update as we get into next year. Definitely too early to talk about success.
I would say it's great to talk about progress, and that's where we are at the moment.
Thanks. Can I squeeze in, please, a very quick follow-up on how the supply chain has coped with the, maybe, increased strain because of the incremental demand because of the weather? Has there been any pressure on the cost base, maybe logistics or production, or have you coped with that normally? Thank you.
I'd say the team, I mentioned it earlier, and a big call-out to all our colleagues in customer service and supply chain. We've managed it really well. We've had to make some, I would say, short-term tactical decisions about prioritizing certain SKUs. We came into the summer with reasonably good inventories. Our customers usually have good inventories, so that buffer certainly helps us to manage the uplift we've seen, particularly in June and into July. Not without pressure. I would say a lot of hard work, but nothing significantly impacting our cost base or anything like that. It's been really good to see that the team and our factories can respond to that uplift.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey, Wells Fargo Securities.
Hi, everybody. Thank you for the question. I wanted to follow up on confidence levels around using pricing as a lever. Clearly, coming into 2026, there was a key strategy across the Coca-Cola system to drive improved or more balanced top-line growth with volume. You've talked about, in this call, providing consumers with the appropriate value and price points. As we look at 2027, it certainly does seem like inflation will be higher than it is in 2026 based on what we can see today with acceleration in the back half. How does this strategy in 2026 evolve into 2027? Can the pricing line continue to be as robust for you when you need it most, when inflation is rising, or is there a step change in the thought process about how to manage these inflationary backdrops, say, relative to 2022 and 2023?
I just wonder if you could maybe go one level down and talk about how you would view this in your Europe versus APS businesses as well. Thanks so much.
Yeah. Thanks. I'll let Ed give more color, but just to kind of save the sweat, I suppose. I mean, we're very fortunate when we look at the shape our business has now. A high percentage of the revenues are outside of retail, so those replacements are away from home—those kinds of things. That gives us access to a much more elastic consumer environment on pricing. I think that's quite different to a lot of other businesses in CPG. We're also more diversified than ever across categories and packs. Again, when we look at pricing, it's a very, very segmented strategy. I think that gives us confidence that pricing will remain part of our mix story through 2026 and into 2027.
It's a similar environment in APS, albeit I would say we're focused on affordability, as you'd expect, more in markets like Indonesia and the Philippines, where we just know out-of-pocket spending is under more pressure. Ultimately, we feel with that diversity and a segmented approach, we're in good shape for this year and next year. I don't know, Ed, do you want to?
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. If you look back over our history, we've managed successfully, I think, periods of low inflation and periods of high inflation. It will be a balanced approach, as you said, Chris. We're very conscious of the need for volume growth across the business and revenue per case growth. I think one of the strong things about CCEP is we have many levers to that pricing, whether it's the headline price or a lot of opportunity always to make our promotions work harder and be more efficient. Then, as you look across the portfolio, there are many different packs and brands, which really lends itself to being able to take that very segmented approach. I think 2027 will be no different from any of the other years.
It will be a very carefully considered approach. We'll look at what's the right thing from a consumer pricing perspective, from affordability, what's the right thing for the cash flow from a customer perspective, and of course, what do we need to do to cover our costs in our business, but also to invest in the future. I think we will see the same type of trends and the same type of activities as we've seen in previous years of maybe slightly higher inflation.
Yeah. I think we're also leveraging innovation as well. I think a lot of the innovation you'll see coming through smaller pack sizes is generating a higher revenue per case, commanding a bit more of a premium. There's more of that to come as we look at brands like BODYARMOR or what we do with Powerade, I talked about earlier. Obviously, energy is mainly single-serve, driving a nice revenue per case. To Ed's point, I think we've a lot of different levers beyond that headline price element, but there will be some headline price as well. The combination of all of those gives us confidence that we can maintain a quality top-line growth, which for us is really a little bit of price, mix, and volume, and also sustain margin expansion on the P&L, which we're obviously very focused on. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla, UBS.
Hey, Damian, Ed. I just wanted to dig into your share trends across Europe. I think we started the year with some weaker momentum, particularly in Germany and France. How have you seen your competitiveness develop through the course of the half-year period? Specifically on the away-from-home channel, I think volumes were only up 0.5%. Are there any parts of Europe where performance is lagging? I think there was a bit of momentum built last year, but has that faded a little bit this year? How would you assess your away-from-home performance in Q2? Thanks.
Thanks, Sanjeet. Our share has improved, particularly in Europe as the years progress. We're actually seeing a slightly better volume share than value share, and that comes back to some of the points Ed talked about. We've seen some of our large PET initiatives pay off, particularly on Diet Coke. I'm a Diet Coke fan, so I want to call out Diet Coke, where we've seen that brand return to growth in GB. Our volume share is improving, and so is value share in Europe. As you see overall in NARTD, we gain share. In terms of away from home, I would say it's pretty consistent with last year. Obviously, revenue is doing a little bit better than volume. Across all of our markets, it's pretty consistent. Obviously, it's picked up a bit as the weather kicked in, particularly in June and into July.
Nothing structural there. Obviously, it continues to be a channel where we've got to drive more availability, so our coolers are a big part of our away-from-home strategy. We've got to manage clearly, particularly down to trade. You'll see a few more meal deals. You've seen that from some of our big customers, a bit more value from McDonald's. I think that just reflects what Ed talked about, that while we see the business being very resilient, we are conscious that some consumers still respond more to value, and that's also true in the away-from-home way. Two years now, where we've seen growth in away-from-home, and we're really happy with that.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Richard Withagen, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Damian, Ed, and Sarah. Thanks for the question. You mentioned promotions and promo spending a few times on the call today. I think also on previous calls you mentioned it. Can you perhaps quantify promo spending? Is there more optimization potential? What else in revenue and margin growth management are you focusing on to optimize?
Yeah. There's always opportunity when I speak to my key account and commercial team. It's a big pot of money. I do think optimization has really improved. We've done some good work using technology. We clearly understand what promos don't create value for us or our customers, what promos drive better household penetration. We will continue with that. I think beyond promo optimization, you'll probably see that a little bit in some of our markets, some of the promo depth is increasing. We see similar promos but at a slightly higher promotional price. Clearly, to Ed's point earlier, that will support some of that NSR growth through to the second half of the year. Beyond that, I think, as I talked to earlier, our innovation plays a good role. It's mainly single-serve. It's mainly more premium compared to large PET.
A lot of it's on the go, which commands a higher price. Then within retail, we see an opportunity, particularly, I'm just back from a visit to the U.S. with Ed. You can really see how they've taken mini cans and small PET even further than we have in Europe. That's been a good part of our story, but when you visit markets like that, you can see how that can be even a bigger part of our story in Europe and in Australia. I think packaging, pack mix, and pack innovation will be a bigger part of our RGM story going forward. Then clearly categories. When we look at sports, particularly Powerade and Aquarius, they drive a much better mix for us.
Again, just referencing my North American trip, when you stand in front of a fixture in the U.S., and also I would say in Australia, to our team's credit in Australia, they've just done a much bigger job on making Powerade and that whole sports category relevant. We see the growth in that in Europe, there's a long way to go. It's a combination of that price promo optimization, pack mix optimization, and better category leverage, and I think that gives us confidence not just for 2027, but over the next number of years in Europe and in Australia and New Zealand.
Thanks, Damian.
Our next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat, Bernstein.
Hi. Thank you guys for taking my question. One from me, please. That 20,000 new coolers added is a pretty incredible number; you referenced it quite a lot in a helpful manner in your prepared remarks. Can you give us a sense of how this incremental cooler capacity is distributed across your geographies or channels? Just help us understand the ROI or incremental sales or positive mix generated by an investment like that in whatever way in terms of quantifying that you can. Thank you.
Thanks, Nadine. Great question. Actually, it's 80,000 coolers that we've done this year, and that was building on a significant increase as well last year. Yeah, we're very pleased with our progress on cooler placements. I would say it's fairly evenly balanced across our markets and actually pretty evenly balanced across channels, both in the home channel and away from home. We found lots more opportunities to place coolers, both Coke coolers and Monster coolers. From a finance perspective, they're some of the best investments we like to make. Every cooler is different depending on where you place it, but you can be looking at returns of certainly within a couple of years for a well-placed cooler. We give quite specific guidance to our sales teams in terms of what type of throughput we need to be seeing in order to generate the return.
If that throughput is delivered, then you can be very comfortable with the return. Of course, we're starting to see more and more the use of connected coolers, and that gives us great feedback on the number of purchases, what's the right distribution of products and brands is, and the right rates of sale that we should be seeing through those coolers. Again, another area where technology and AI are really giving us fantastic insight is to make sure we put the right coolers of the right size in the right locations. Certainly from a finance perspective, we are very happy with the returns we receive from our cold drink placements.
Understood. Thank you. One follow-up on that, actually. It clearly is meeting the consumer at a place where they want something cold; they want something convenient. What does that say about underlying consumer dynamics today, single-serve versus multi-packs? How are you expecting that to evolve over the coming years?
Yeah, I think our single-serve business, particularly as we bring more flavor and innovation, is really robust, and it's something that we know that our category is an impulse category, right? It's a huge benefit that if you put it in the right place and it's cold, it gets sold. That's been true for a long time in our business. It's also an area where you can get price elasticity. I think people realize and accept that for that convenience and for that immediate cold product, they'll pay a little bit more, which is good for us and for our customer. Typically, when you look at our beverages across our markets, while we have taken pricing, you can get a cold Coke in most of our markets for around EUR 1, $1.50.
While we do talk about pricing, the absolute spend to enjoy one of our products, I would argue, is always still very reasonable; let's put it that way.
Hmm
On top of that, you got categories like energy and sports that command a premium. Candidly, our distribution, particularly on sports, in the away-from-home and cold, is very low. That's something we've got to find a better way to unlock that opportunity.
I think it also says quite a bit about the customer, and the customer sees the value in the category overall, and that it's a great value creator from them from an outlet perspective. We see increasing signs of the customer wanting to place more and more equipment and then give more and more space to soft drinks, which I think is a great thing for us, obviously.
Fantastic. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett, Deutsche Bank.
Hi, Damian. Hi, Ed. Hi, Sarah. I enjoyed your third slide, the new one, thank you for that. There was a bullet on there about KIRA, your agentic AI application. You say that it gave you deeper brand insights and faster market decisions. I just wondered if you could give us any examples of those insights and decisions, how do you expect that tool to develop and contribute to the business going forward? Thank you.
Thanks, Mitch. We have got a wealth of information as a system. I think that's the starting point, whether it's from our customers, from our own structured research with The Coca-Cola Company and Monster, EPOS data. We really have a lot of information. Our challenge was trying to put that in a place where we could access it and use different sources to make better decisions. This is, I think, a challenge of many companies. KIRA really is our first big attempt to have an AI agent that sits above a lot of those sources, whether it's Nielsen, Kantar, EPOS information, brand information from The Coca-Cola Company. It is giving us a better understanding of how consumers respond to some of our initiatives, whether that's promo or new pack innovation. Clearly then that steers the next decision about where we prioritize resource.
It's really allowing our commercial teams to ask the right question, get a very quick answer, and then bring that to our customers to shape whether it's space in a cooler, better promo pricing, or better innovation as we go forward. I think we're at the beginning of that. We've also done some work with McKinsey on trying to look at how AI can sit above even more information, really consolidating a great data set from The Coca-Cola Company with what we have. I think that's where KIRA sits in the middle of that. Early days, but it's certainly amazing to see what took weeks to try and get some correlation between the Nielsen shopper panel or customer data is now happening a lot quicker. Super exciting.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Eric Serotta, Morgan Stanley.
Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Two quick ones. First, Damian, back in Manila, you talked about the potential upside for improving core sparkling volumes in Europe. Looks like you made some progress in terms of Diet Coke and Light in a couple of markets. Original taste seemed a little on the soft side, but even taking a step back from the quarter-to-quarter volatility, could you talk about your progress and your confidence in achieving that core sparkling volume improvement in Europe since we heard from this a little over a year ago? Then a quick one for Ed. Usually around this time, around mid-year, you're typically about 50% hedged on commodities for the following year. Where do you guys stand today? Are you a little bit less because of maybe elevated prices earlier in the year, or were there some opportunities given the forward curves on commodities?
Thanks so much.
Thanks, Eric. Good memory back to our Manila meeting. We have seen sparkling volumes grow in Europe, and I think that's been great. It's been led by zeros, with Europe over 10%. You're absolutely right. The brand that hasn't grown volume has really been Coke Classic, and we've talked about that. I think there are a couple of factors at play. Obviously, people are enjoying great-tasting zero-sugar options, particularly Coke Zero, but now Diet Coke, which is great. On a consolidated level, we can grow our Coke trademark franchise and volume, and that for us is really important. Coke Classic is still the best-tasting brand. We still see that performing, and it's still growing revenue. While on a volume level, it's off a little bit, but it is growing revenue.
I think that will continue as we have, as I mentioned earlier, mini cans, probably smaller portions around our classic variants, both Coke and Fanta, and clearly a better zero proposition. The category is growing. It will be led by zeros. We see that gaining momentum both in energy and in soft drinks. As we've reformulated, we're now really in a solid position to take that forward. Also fair to say to Coke Classic, when you look at the shorter period, we did have the sugar tax increase in France, and clearly, that was mainly on Coke Classic, and that obviously impacts volume in the short term. We generally cycle out of that through the year. Overall, it's great to see the category, sparkling category, and growth, and it's great to see it led by zeros.
I'll just pass the call to Ed on your second question.
Thank you, Eric. Yes, as you say, we aim to be 80% covered by the time we start in the coming year. We don't give specific guidance at this stage in terms of the year coming and where we are at the half-year point, but we aim to build it up fairly evenly over the year. As you say, 50% is probably a reasonable approximation. We haven't delayed any of our hedging activity this year despite the Middle East because obviously we try to avoid or we do avoid speculation, and we do the hedging to give us certainty, in terms of as far as possible, on costs for the coming year. Although the forwards are higher, I think what we have seen through the Middle East crisis is quite a lot more volatility on individual commodity prices.
We have locked in what I think are some good competitive rates for next year already. We haven't overall delayed our hedging program just as a result of the Middle East.
Great. Thank you so much. I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman, Barclays.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to just talk for a second about the quote more customers element of your strategic priorities. There were a couple called out in the release, but it's interesting to think about the range of large customers that would be directly linked to KO-level conversations like Marriott versus things that are more specific to your markets. I was curious if you could talk a little bit about that process and how much of this more customers do you think of as being CCEP-specific things that are driven by your ability to cover more accounts with the productivity you're finding in your sales force versus big global strategic partnerships. Thanks.
Hi, Lauren. It's mainly within CCEP's control and mandate. We won a lot of new business, both small and large. We won businesses in the event space. I talked about football. We won the biggest local chain in Spain, in terms of pizza and food to go, Domino's in Australia. Clearly we leverage any global relationship we can get with The Coca-Cola Company, but the majority of the outlets are very local. We're very focused on that. You see a lot of multiple buying groups, particularly in Europe and Australia, where they have 10-12 outlets and they're exciting. Obviously, a win like Marriott lifts all boats. When The Coca-Cola Company shared that news, it was fantastic for us, 600 hotels. I think globally, when you look at our global franchise partners, The Coca-Cola Company is very strong already.
I would say the upside for us is we'll always welcome a gift from Atlanta if they can land one of the big global ones. Really, for us, it's in our control, and it's mainly local chains. Our share and away from home is quite high relative to retail, but that doesn't mean we don't have opportunities, and we'll keep picking up new customers and new business as we go through this year.
Okay, great. Thanks so much.
Our next question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs, Rothschild & Co Redburn.
Hi, Damian and Ed. Hope you're well. Also want to say happy birthday to CCEP for 10 years in the quarter, and hope it was a good party. On that note, I was wondering if we look back over the last 10 years in Europe specifically, there's been a lot of volatility at the macro level, sugar taxes and whatnot, and yet CCEP Europe has still delivered very resilient 4% or so organic sales growth per annum. It seems like a lot of the themes in the presentation today are about really dialing up the execution at the local level with KO, cooler placements, more customers, and bigger, stronger innovations. How should we think about the growth setup for Europe going forward?
I guess where I'm coming from is, why isn't the European guidance more like 3%-4% over the medium term rather than the 2%-3%? Thank you.
Thanks, Charlie. Thank you for the birthday wishes. We were all very busy during the summer. We had a little bit of a party. Europe, since we created CCEP, has been a massive value creator compounding year-on-year, and we see that continuing. We look at guidance on the midterm, as we look at the group guidance around that 4% revenue, to your point, that implies Europe around 2%-3%. We think on a steady state; that's a good number. If we can do better than that, obviously we will. Within that, we have factored in that transition from classic to more zero. That's accelerating, and we see that we're benefiting from that this year. We'll review guidance as we get more visibility on innovation with The Coca-Cola Company and Monster for Europe as we go into 2027.
I think overall, that range of 2%-3% is a good number, leads to the 4% for the group. Your next question would be, if we did change Europe, would we change the group? Clearly we want to manage all that within our current framework. Happy to stick to the 2%-3% for Europe. Thanks, Charlie.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Robert Ottenstein, Evercore ISI.
Great. Thank you very much. Damian, at this point, you've managed through a number of the FIFA World Cups. I was wondering if you could reflect on how the execution, the stuff that we don't see, but the kind of the nuts and bolts that goes into success, has changed over prior World Cups, whether it's coordination with The Coca-Cola Company, dealing with more social media now, more agility, changing things on the run, just some of the things underneath the hood that we just can't see. Love you to reflect on that. Just one small question, just sort of coming into work today. I saw a headline about possible tax changes in Philippines on CSDs. Maybe give some context. I don't know if that's a special thing or something that was expected. Thank you.
Thanks, Robert. I think, and obviously you listened in, obviously on the KO side. It was the biggest FIFA activation globally. Certainly, CCEP played a big part in that. It's always been a big event for us, but I think there was something very special about this year, and I think it was mainly in the space of digital and being able to drive more transactions with FIFA. I think Manolo and the team, both in Atlanta and locally in Europe, really focused on making FIFA a transaction event. We obviously had the Panini initiative, which was huge in Europe. We had a lot of opportunities for our consumers to engage on pack. That was quite different to previous FIFAs. Yeah, and I think overall, that led us to be able to activate more cases on the floor, et cetera. Also, you mentioned speed.
I think the Gold Can coming out so quickly for Spain, I think, again, just shows how, as a system and as a business, we're able to move fast, make fast decisions, and be prepared. We had a number of gold cans ready, just in case. I won't name the ones that didn't make it, but clearly we're happy Spain, given it's one of our key markets, made it. Probably the digital tech and social engagement, Robert, would be what I'd call out as being at a very, very high level compared to previous FIFAs.
On the sugar tax, there is some stuff in the media today. I think we need a bit of time to go through that. I think if you take a step back, though, we're well used to dealing with tax changes across all of our markets. If you look at last year, we had the France sugar tax, which had some impact within the year, but as a good example, in quarter two, we were back into volume growth in France. I think when you look across our portfolio with the number of packs and brands that we have and our RGM capability, we're in a good position to be able to manage the impact of those types of tax changes as they come. We'll do a bit more digging on what's actually proposed for the Philippines and reflect on that for our plans for 2027.
Yeah. We already have a tax in the Philippines.
Yeah.
It's an excise tax; it's across all beverages, sugar, and sweeteners. That's already in place, Robert. Let's see what changes they propose to that as well.
Our last question for today comes from the line of Carlos Laboy, HSBC.
Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Damian, I was hoping you could follow up a little bit on Lauren's question. What has changed that is helping you drive recruitment of more customers better? Is it an internal mindset? Is it that you have new tools that allow you to crack the code on these opportunities better? Is this something that you think can continue to drive growth in your client base going forward?
Yeah, thanks, Carlos. It's something that's been a consistent part of our story at CCEP. I think probably a couple of years ago, we talked about having a bolder view on the away-from-home market. That market had been in decline for a while, and we talked about not being passive about that and actually working across a number of areas to drive growth in away from home, including customer wins. One pillar was customer wins. The second pillar which we talked about was cooler placement, so to drive more availability in that space. The third element was leveraging our consumer assets better to drive transactions, and I talked to FIFA doing that as well. Clearly, as we broaden our portfolio, we become a very compelling partner for customers.
We bring to all of them a hydration platform, a leading energy platform, clearly the leading CSD portfolio. Obviously, we're looking at bringing more innovation in sports and hydration. When you look at any NARTD, there's no one really with the breadth of portfolio that we can bring. There are a lot of companies with individual strengths in different segments. I think that's definitely compelling, Carlos. I think the more we talk to that total portfolio and the category opportunity, the more it plays into customers' needs for profit and growth. Typically, they earn a good margin on our products, particularly in out-of-home. Obviously as businesses become tougher with rates or with inflation around labor, selling a category that generates good margin definitely makes life a little bit easier for our sales force. Yeah, probably a combination of all those elements.
It's always been part of our story. It's always been a passionate part of our business that we want to onboard a lot more customers. That's definitely true in the Philippines and Indonesia. We're having a lot of customer wins in Australia and also in Europe. Yeah. Happy to be able to talk to it today.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Damian Gammell for his closing remarks. Damian, please go ahead.
Thanks, Mel, and a big, big thank you to everybody who joined us this morning or this afternoon. As Ed and I talked to, we had a strong first half and were very happy that today we're reaffirming our full-year guidance. We are very pleased with the progress against our strategic priorities as we've outlined today. Also pleased with the start of half two, and I think the strength of our business demonstrates resilience and the consistency of our growth model. We do look forward to speaking to you again at Q3. In the meantime, I hope everybody can get a break and enjoy a great summer, ideally in one of our markets, and obviously enjoy a nice cold beverage from one of our new coolers. Thank you very much and have a great rest of the day. Thank you.
That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-07-28Fomento Economico Mexicano Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Fomento Economico Mexicano Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in Fomento Economico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V.? Here are five stocks we like better. FEMSA delivered strong Q2 results: Revenue rose 9.3% year over year, operating income increased 7.2%, and net consolidated income jumped 64.9% to MXN 9.2 billion, helped by lower foreign-exchange losses and associate contributions. OXXO Mexico returned to traffic growth, with same-store sales up 9.5% and traffic up 2%, although management expects post-World Cup normalization. The company is adjusting prices, product assortments and promotions to improve competitiveness while protecting margins. FEMSA is expanding its growth platforms: Spin’s active users increased 22% as the company cautiously develops consumer lending, while Bara, OXXO Colombia and OXXO Brazil continued adding stores. FEMSA also completed a $300 million share repurchase and expects roughly MXN 41 billion in capital distributions through March 2027. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Fomento Economico Mexicano (NYSE:FMX) reported 9.3% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2026 and said operating income increased 7.2%, supported by OXXO Mexico, international operations and restructuring initiatives. Net consolidated income rose 64.9% to MXN 9.2 billion, aided by lower foreign-exchange losses and a positive contribution from associates. Chief Executive Officer José Antonio Fernández Garza said the company saw positive operational momentum across most of its businesses, while cautioning that World Cup-related demand benefits have ended and Mexico’s consumer environment remains sluggish. → Volatility Is Back and These 3 Market Tollbooths Are Best Positioned to Profit OXXO Mexico posted revenue growth of 11.8%, with same-store sales rising 9.5%. Traffic increased 2%, marking the first positive traffic result in eight quarters, while average ticket rose 7.4%. The chain added 253 net new stores during the quarter. Management estimated that the World Cup accounted for at least 60% of the traffic uplift, split between Panini collectible sales and consumption associated with Mexico’s four June matches. Excluding the tournament’s effects, Chief Financial Officer Martín Arias said OXXO Mexico’s traffic would have risen about 1% and its average ticket would have increased 6.2%. → This Tiny AI Supplier Could Be More Important Than the Chipmakers Fernández Garza said the traffi…Read full documentShow less
Interested in Fomento Economico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V.? Here are five stocks we like better. FEMSA delivered strong Q2 results: Revenue rose 9.3% year over year, operating income increased 7.2%, and net consolidated income jumped 64.9% to MXN 9.2 billion, helped by lower foreign-exchange losses and associate contributions. OXXO Mexico returned to traffic growth, with same-store sales up 9.5% and traffic up 2%, although management expects post-World Cup normalization. The company is adjusting prices, product assortments and promotions to improve competitiveness while protecting margins. FEMSA is expanding its growth platforms: Spin’s active users increased 22% as the company cautiously develops consumer lending, while Bara, OXXO Colombia and OXXO Brazil continued adding stores. FEMSA also completed a $300 million share repurchase and expects roughly MXN 41 billion in capital distributions through March 2027. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Fomento Economico Mexicano (NYSE:FMX) reported 9.3% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2026 and said operating income increased 7.2%, supported by OXXO Mexico, international operations and restructuring initiatives. Net consolidated income rose 64.9% to MXN 9.2 billion, aided by lower foreign-exchange losses and a positive contribution from associates. Chief Executive Officer José Antonio Fernández Garza said the company saw positive operational momentum across most of its businesses, while cautioning that World Cup-related demand benefits have ended and Mexico’s consumer environment remains sluggish. → Volatility Is Back and These 3 Market Tollbooths Are Best Positioned to Profit OXXO Mexico posted revenue growth of 11.8%, with same-store sales rising 9.5%. Traffic increased 2%, marking the first positive traffic result in eight quarters, while average ticket rose 7.4%. The chain added 253 net new stores during the quarter. Management estimated that the World Cup accounted for at least 60% of the traffic uplift, split between Panini collectible sales and consumption associated with Mexico’s four June matches. Excluding the tournament’s effects, Chief Financial Officer Martín Arias said OXXO Mexico’s traffic would have risen about 1% and its average ticket would have increased 6.2%. → This Tiny AI Supplier Could Be More Important Than the Chipmakers Fernández Garza said the traffic improvement also reflected changes launched during the second half of last year to make OXXO more consumer-centric. The company is refining price-pack architecture, promotions and assortment in its impulse categories, while introducing lower-priced options in areas where it believes convenience-focused pricing had weakened its competitiveness. “The key is to find the right algorithm, the optimal balance of price and gross margin that will drive incremental traffic while keeping our operating margin stable,” Fernández Garza said. → 2 Stocks Built to Thrive If Inflation Refuses to Fade The company’s initiatives are organized around four areas: impulse categories; prepared food and coffee; daily replenishment and grocery products; and services enabled by OXXO and the Spin digital platform. Management said coffee sales grew at a healthy pace during the quarter, with targeted regional tests producing encouraging early results. Prepared food and coffee currently represent a mid-single-digit percentage of OXXO Mexico revenue, compared with mid- to high-teen percentages in Colombia and Europe, according to the CEO. OXXO Mexico’s gross margin declined 70 basis points to 44.8%, reflecting price rationalization and a greater mix of lower-price products. However, selling expenses grew more slowly than revenue and administrative expenses fell 3.3%. Operating income increased 12.3%, and operating margin expanded 10 basis points to 10%. Management emphasized that its changes are generally focused on assortment and entry price points rather than across-the-board price cuts. Fernández Garza said OXXO expects to remain competitive in core traffic-driving categories such as beer, soft drinks, snacks and tobacco, while becoming more aggressive on pricing in pantry and replenishment categories. Spin by OXXO continued to expand, with monthly active users up 22% from a year earlier. Fernández Garza said the platform has become one of the more relevant participants in Mexico’s payments system based on transaction processing, while bill payments and other services continue to grow in both physical OXXO stores and Spin. The company is increasingly focused on monetizing the platform through engagement, credit and broader ecosystem opportunities. FEMSA announced a partnership with QED Investors during the quarter to help develop its lending platform. Fernández Garza said FEMSA has begun sharing data with QED and has seen encouraging correlations related to credit underwriting. Still, he stressed that the company would proceed cautiously through a “low-and-grow” approach due to the risks inherent in consumer lending. Arias said the credit operation is currently small and contained, and that the longer-term goal is for lending to become non-recourse to FEMSA. Potential future funding sources could include off-balance-sheet financing and, eventually, a banking license, though he said the business remains in its early stages. FEMSA’s Bara discount proximity format added 112 net new stores during the quarter, a record pace of more than one opening per day. Same-store sales continued to grow at double-digit rates, while private-label products remained a central part of the format’s value proposition. Fernández Garza said newer store cohorts are showing faster maturation and improving unit economics. In Latin America, FEMSA said Colombia and Brazil remain important long-term opportunities. Revenue in Colombia rose about 30%, largely driven by same-store sales growth. After slowing expansion to refine the format, management said OXXO Colombia is now delivering solid overall economics and is positioned to accelerate unit growth. Prepared food represents a double-digit share of Colombian revenue. OXXO Brazil ended the quarter with nearly 640 stores. Fernández Garza later clarified that Brazilian same-store sales remained in the double digits, slowing from the high teens to the low teens. The company expects both Colombia and Brazil to reach 700 stores by year-end, while management said it remains focused on refining Brazil’s model before accelerating openings. The Americas and Mobility segment reported revenue of MXN 28 billion, up 7.4%, or 11.6% on a comparable currency-neutral basis. Operating income was MXN 80 million, with profitability affected by diesel price commitments in Mexico and losses from consolidating OXXO Brazil. Europe generated MXN 14.5 billion in revenue, up 3.2% on a currency-neutral basis. A solid Swiss retail operation was partly offset by weak German retail and food-service performance, which management attributed to soft traffic, poor weather and train route closures. FEMSA also cited sluggish business-to-business demand. The health division’s revenue rose 2.2% to MXN 22.3 billion. Operating income fell 57.7% to MXN 346 million after the company recorded a non-cash MXN 408 million credit-risk provision tied to its institutional business in Colombia. FEMSA said it notified EPS Sanitas, its largest institutional counterparty in Colombia, that it will not renew their agreement when it expires in September. Coca-Cola FEMSA, meanwhile, benefited from strong South American performance, with Brazil and Colombia reporting record second-quarter volumes and double-digit operating-income growth. Mexico continued to face a softer consumer environment and higher excise taxes. FEMSA deployed about MXN 8.9 billion in capital expenditures during the quarter. It also completed a $300 million accelerated share repurchase program. Including ordinary and extraordinary dividends, expected capital distributions between March 2026 and March 2027 are projected to total about MXN 41 billion. Net debt to EBITDA declined to 1.15 times from 1.24 times in the previous quarter. Looking ahead, executives said OXXO Mexico’s same-store sales will likely normalize following the World Cup, but pointed to improving post-tournament traffic trends and continued market-share gains as encouraging indicators. Fomento Económico Mexicano, SAB. de C.V. (FEMSA) is a Mexican multinational company active primarily in the retail and beverage sectors. Headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico, FEMSA's operations span convenience store retailing, beverage bottling and distribution, and related logistics and consumer services. The company's business model combines high-frequency retail outlets with large-scale beverage production and a regional supply chain network. FEMSA Comercio, the company's retail arm, operates a large chain of convenience stores under the OXXO brand and has expanded its retail footprint with complementary formats and services. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Fomento Economico Mexicano Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for July 2026.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-04-28Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
CCEP reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance for 3–4% revenue growth, ~7% operating profit growth and comparable free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion, saying Q1 was a “good start” driven by positive mix, solid underlying volume growth and market share gains. Growth was led by innovation and execution — notably Monster volumes up ~20%+, new product and pack launches, and about 40,000 additional Coke and Monster coolers to boost distribution and away-from-home presence. Management highlighted risk mitigation and investment: the company is >85% hedged for the year, sees inflationary pressures as “not as severe as 2022,” is investing in AI and supply capacity (mega plant in Manila), and retains balance-sheet flexibility for bottling expansion plus dividends and buybacks. Interested in Coca-Cola Europacific Partners? Here are five stocks we like better. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (NASDAQ:CCEP) reported what CEO Damian Gammell described as a “good start to the year” in its Q1 2026 trading update, citing positive mix, solid underlying volume growth and continued market share gains across key beverage categories. While Q1 is typically the company’s smallest quarter, management said performance was “broadly in line with expectations” and reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance for 3% to 4% revenue growth, around 7% operating profit growth and comparable free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion, which CFO Ed Walker noted is “half two-weighted as usual.” → Pipelines and Automation: 2 Energy Plays Built for Any Oil Price The ‘Other’ Coke Stock Quietly Hits a Record High Gammell said revenue continued to benefit from “positive mix drivers” seen last year, supported by factors including additional cooler placements and the growth of Monster. He also pointed to “solid comparable volume growth beyond the benefit of a slightly earlier Easter.” On a comparable basis, CCEP said Europe volumes grew 1.4%, “primarily driven by growth in Germany and GB,” with particular strength in the at-home channel, which the company said typically sees more Easter-related spending and larger packs. In the Australia Pacific & Southeast Asia (APS) segment, comparable volumes rose 1.9%, driven by the Philippines, double-digit growth in the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea, and improvement in Indonesia, where sparkling beverages benefited from…Read full documentShow less
CCEP reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance for 3–4% revenue growth, ~7% operating profit growth and comparable free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion, saying Q1 was a “good start” driven by positive mix, solid underlying volume growth and market share gains. Growth was led by innovation and execution — notably Monster volumes up ~20%+, new product and pack launches, and about 40,000 additional Coke and Monster coolers to boost distribution and away-from-home presence. Management highlighted risk mitigation and investment: the company is >85% hedged for the year, sees inflationary pressures as “not as severe as 2022,” is investing in AI and supply capacity (mega plant in Manila), and retains balance-sheet flexibility for bottling expansion plus dividends and buybacks. Interested in Coca-Cola Europacific Partners? Here are five stocks we like better. Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners is a tasty play on Coke Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (NASDAQ:CCEP) reported what CEO Damian Gammell described as a “good start to the year” in its Q1 2026 trading update, citing positive mix, solid underlying volume growth and continued market share gains across key beverage categories. While Q1 is typically the company’s smallest quarter, management said performance was “broadly in line with expectations” and reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance for 3% to 4% revenue growth, around 7% operating profit growth and comparable free cash flow of at least €1.7 billion, which CFO Ed Walker noted is “half two-weighted as usual.” → Pipelines and Automation: 2 Energy Plays Built for Any Oil Price The ‘Other’ Coke Stock Quietly Hits a Record High Gammell said revenue continued to benefit from “positive mix drivers” seen last year, supported by factors including additional cooler placements and the growth of Monster. He also pointed to “solid comparable volume growth beyond the benefit of a slightly earlier Easter.” On a comparable basis, CCEP said Europe volumes grew 1.4%, “primarily driven by growth in Germany and GB,” with particular strength in the at-home channel, which the company said typically sees more Easter-related spending and larger packs. In the Australia Pacific & Southeast Asia (APS) segment, comparable volumes rose 1.9%, driven by the Philippines, double-digit growth in the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea, and improvement in Indonesia, where sparkling beverages benefited from a “solid Ramadan festive period,” according to Gammell. → Homebuilder Earnings: D.R. Horton Sticks Out as Pulte & NVR Sales Tank Why Chemours Co (NYSE:CC) Stock is the Recipe for Gains Walker provided additional detail on Europe’s pricing and mix dynamics. He said the company was “pleased” with Q1’s “overall revenue growth of 9.8% in total,” noting the largest portion was from volume with “the extra days at just over 8%.” He said Europe continued to see “very positive brand mix… fueled by energy,” while package mix was positive but offset by Easter-related shifts toward multi-serve, at-home occasions that typically carry lower revenue per case. Walker also cited a “slight headwind from country mix,” with Great Britain and Germany growing faster but having “slightly lower revenue per case versus the other markets in Europe.” In APS, Gammell said revenue per case faced a headwind from the Suntory alcohol exit, which he said had “just over 3% impact on APS revenues and 1% at a group level.” → Meta Platforms Earnings Preview: What to Watch in Q1 2026 Report Management repeatedly emphasized product innovation, packaging and marketing as key drivers of category growth and share gains. Gammell said Q1 innovations were “largely focused around the Coca-Cola trademark,” adding that “bolder moves on Coke are the name of the game.” He highlighted distribution of Coca-Cola Cherry Float in Great Britain supporting a broader Cherry rollout, and said “The Devil Wears Prada 2 campaign” was supporting improvements in Diet Coke. Gammell also cited a strong start for a new 500 ml “super can” in Great Britain and the relaunch of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine with “black and gold packaging,” supported by a partnership with the “007 First Light” video game. In ready-to-drink alcohol (ARTD), he noted additions including “BACARDÍ Spiced & Coca-Cola” and “Absolut Vodka & Sprite Pineapple.” Monster was again a central growth driver. Gammell said Monster volumes were up “by 20% or more,” supported by new launches and core variant growth such as Ultra White. He called out multiple launches including “Rehab,” a tea-based still lineup, and “Viking Berry,” which he said was the “strongest energy release to date” in Great Britain and had already outperformed prior year launches. The company also pointed to gains in away-from-home execution and equipment placements. Gammell said Q1 saw “great customer wins in QSR,” including Chili’s in the Philippines and Great Britain holiday park operator Parkdean. He also said the company added “around 40,000 more Coke and Monster coolers” so far this year, with plans to add up to 1,000 in Co-op convenience stores in Great Britain. Analysts pressed management on inflation and volatility, including comparisons to 2022. Gammell said he did not see the current situation as comparable, while Walker said the company had “learned a lot” from 2022 and described a three-part approach: supply security, cost mitigation and demand management. Walker said the company has worked to ensure “multiple sources of supply for key commodities and materials,” adding that “as we sit here today, we’re in great shape and no material risks from a supply perspective.” On costs, he said CCEP has “a very extensive hedging program” and is “over 85% hedged now for the remainder of the year.” He added that since 2022 CCEP has also worked directly with suppliers to hedge their exposure or reduce risk within their supply chains. On demand, Walker said inflation pressures are a broader food-and-drink challenge rather than company-specific, but added: “As we sit here today, we don’t think it will be as severe as 2022.” He also pointed to revenue growth management tools and the company’s broad portfolio as levers to pull if conditions change. Gammell acknowledged “increasingly uncertain” macro conditions, “particularly given the situation in the Middle East,” but said CCEP’s operating model is resilient. He said the company’s planning assumed “a temporary market disruption,” and that it was not currently seeing any “material impact on consumers,” though it is monitoring conditions closely. On channel mix in Europe, Gammell said Q1’s at-home tilt was consistent with Easter, which he described as “a much more at-home occasion,” and said there was “nothing to read into in Q1” regarding away-from-home trends. He said improving spring weather in Northern Europe was “definitely giving away from home a boost” into April, and that the next couple of quarters are key for away-from-home in Europe. Asked about Germany and France, Gammell said Germany benefited significantly from Easter and remains “quite a competitive market,” adding that CCEP needs to continue refining “price promo architecture” to sustain volume growth. On France, he said the market had faced “a lot of pricing inflation” driven by taxation but indicated the business had improved as the company cycled that disruption, calling out March performance as encouraging. Gammell also addressed portfolio shifts, noting that sugar-free offerings are “continu[ing] to accelerate,” led by Coke Zero, while Diet Coke was benefiting from “more focus” and investment. For Coca-Cola Original Taste, he said performance was strong in single-serve and smaller pack formats, while “most of the volume weakness has been on large PET,” a trend he said has persisted for several quarters. Management discussed ongoing investments in supply chain and digital capabilities, including a new “mega plant outside Manila” that Gammell said remains “on track to begin production at the start of 2027.” He also highlighted the launch of “Kira,” a natural language chat interface developed for the insights team to analyze data and support faster decision-making. On artificial intelligence more broadly, Gammell said CCEP is seeing benefits in planning and forecasting accuracy, and has rolled out tools such as Copilot across the business. He said CCEP is also leveraging AI embedded in partner platforms including Salesforce and ServiceNow, and is using AI to improve promotional efficiency. He added that the company is working with customers using outlet-level sales information to support “share of shelf, cooler space, products on display” discussions, as well as analyzing promotional impacts on household penetration, frequency and loyalty. In response to a question about potential new bottling markets following news about the Pepsi bottling agreement in Denmark and Finland changing hands in 2029, Gammell reiterated CCEP’s “broader ambition to become a bigger bottler in the Coke family.” He said performance remains key, and noted the company’s balance sheet and capital allocation framework retain the ability to do a transaction, while any expansion ultimately depends on discussions with The Coca-Cola Company. CCEP also referenced shareholder returns, with Gammell pointing to a dividend declaration and an ongoing share buyback program. In closing remarks, he said the company was reaffirming guidance despite the uncertain backdrop and highlighted upcoming marketing initiatives, including FIFA World Cup activation and planned innovation across brands through the rest of the year and into 2027. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is a major independent bottler and distributor of nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages, operating under a long-standing franchise relationship with The Coca-Cola Company. The business manufactures, bottles, sells and delivers a broad portfolio of global and local beverage brands, including still and sparkling soft drinks, waters, juices, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. Its activities encompass production, packaging, marketing and route-to-market distribution for retail, foodservice, convenience and vending customers. The company was created through the combination of Coca-Cola European Partners and Coca-Cola Amatil in 2021, bringing together beverage operations across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The article "Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat.
TranscriptFY2026 Q12026-04-28FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 82 paragraphs
FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Hello and thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q1 2026 trading update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need press star one and one on your telephone. I must advise you this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead, Sarah.
Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. I am here with Damian Gammell, our CEO, and our CFO, Ed Walker. Before I hand over to Damian, a reminder of our cautionary statement. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today's release, as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch, and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian. We will turn the call over to your questions. Unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and effect neutral basis throughout. Volume movements, unless otherwise stated, adjust for the impact of six more consumption days in this quarter when compared to the same period last year.
Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian.
Thank you, Sarah, and many thanks again to everyone for joining us today. Firstly, I would really like to thank all of our colleagues for their continued hard work and dedication to this great business, which next month celebrates its 10th birthday. It's been a good start to the year, with CCEP continuing to lead the way in FMCG in creating value for our customers across our markets and in innovative and growing categories where we are gaining share. While Q1 is typically our smallest quarter, we have delivered broadly in line with expectations, and today we are reaffirming our guidance for the full year 2026. Topline growth in the quarter has seen revenue continuing to benefit from the positive mix drivers we saw last year, driven by areas such as more coolers and the growth in Monster.
We also delivered solid comparable volume growth beyond the benefit of a slightly earlier Easter. The category remains really attractive for our consumers and customers. It remains as competitive as ever. Price relevance across all locations remains key, with value continuing to play a role for shoppers in our developed markets. In our emerging markets, we continue to focus on entry-level affordability to build a category for the long term. As we did last year, we continue to build our total beverage offering, leveraging our diverse brand and pack range and our capabilities in revenue and margin growth management. This, of course, goes beyond pricing as we continue to balance premiumization with affordability. We know that value is playing a role for a lot of consumers. We also know they love innovation and they love excitement.
As a category leader, we take the role of bringing this to the consumer more taste innovation with new flavors, more pack innovation, and more promotional innovation, increasingly leveraging AI, which I will come on to next with more win mechanics and more value add. All of this has supported positive share gains in Europe. This has been driven by strong growth in zeros, in colas, flavors, sports, and in energy. We've also seen a sequential volume improvement in APS, supported by share gains in Australia, more normalized volumes in the Philippines, and continued encouraging signs in Indonesia. Volumes in Europe grew by 1.4% on a comparable basis, primarily driven by growth in Germany and G.B., particularly in the home channel, where we typically see more Easter-related spending and typically, in larger future consumption packs.
This was reflected in our revenue per unit case growth alongside those positive mix benefits I mentioned just now, which I'm really pleased with. We grew APS volumes by 1.9% on a comparable basis, driven by the Philippines, double-digit growth in the Pacific Islands and PNG, and further improvement in Indonesia, driven by sparkling, supported by a solid Ramadan festive period. Our revenue per case reflected a headwind from the Suntory alcohol exit, which had just over 3% impact on APS revenues and 1% at a group level. Fantastic in-market execution has supported a strong start for new innovations across our markets, which in Q1 have been largely focused around the Coca-Cola trademark. As I said before, bolder moves on Coke are the name of the game, and we are seeing the benefits.
Strong distribution of the nostalgic Coke Cherry Float in G.B. is supporting the rollout of Cherry more broadly, with the excellent The Devil Wears Prada movie sequel campaign supporting recent improvements in Diet Coke. We've seen a great start for the new Coke 500ml super can or Superfan can, as it's known in G.B. We're also relaunching Zero Caffeine now in much more eye-catching black and gold packaging, supported by a partnership with the newly released 007 First Light video game. In ARTD, we've added to our growing alcohol portfolio with the additions of BACARDÍ Spiced with Coke and the recent launch of Absolut Vodka & Sprite Pineapple. Monster more broadly has continued to motor from where it left off last year, with volumes up by 20% or more.
In many of our largest markets, supported by new launches and the strong growth of core variants like Ultra White. There have been multiple Monster launches during the quarter, including Rehab, a lineup of tea-based stills, and the latest juice variant, Viking Berry. This variant has been the strongest energy release to date in, for example, G.B., our largest energy market, where it's already outperformed last year's launches of both Rio Punch and Lando. Q1 saw further progress in away-from-home, with some great customer wins in QSR. These include the American team fast-growing Chili's casual dining chain in the Philippines, and the largest holiday park operator in G.B., Parkdean, boasting 66 sites and attracting 3 million visitors annually. We've also made great progress around placing even more coolers, with a particular focus on convenience of food-to-go outlets, supporting immediate consumption.
As you know, what is cold is sold. So far this year, we've already added around 40,000 more Coke and Monster coolers, with more to come. For example, we'll be adding up to 1,000 in Co-op convenience stores, a great win for our G.B. team. Looking out to the rest of the year, much of our planned pricing is now in market. We have solid commercial programs in place with plenty more innovation and excitement to come. For example, in flavors, new Sprite Chill Zero will soon be available across our markets, together with the latest burst of the Fanta Wanta campaign with the new Gen Z-focused gaming tie-up with Xbox. We've more Fuze Tea flavors to come in Europe, an expansion of Lift in the Philippines, and more in energy across the Monster portfolio.
Of course, as an avid football fan, June sees the start of the FIFA World Cup, which we'll see is front and center with colorful, exciting in-store activations and consumer promotions, particularly around Coke and Powerade. All in all, lots to look forward to to excite both our customers and consumers. More broadly, the macroeconomic environment is increasingly uncertain, particularly given the situation in the Middle East. We are resilient and have a robust operating model. While input prices have been affected, we are able to manage the impact. Our highly hedged commodities position, now at around 85%, ongoing efficiency programs, and control of discretionary spend gives us good visibility on costs for the year.
Our planning has been based on a temporary market disruption, and whilst we aren't currently seeing any material impact on consumers, we're monitoring the situation closely and will adapt our plans accordingly should things change. We're continuing to invest in our business, in coolers, as I mentioned, in our supply chain, and our new mega plant outside Manila on track to begin production at the start of 2027, and also in our digital capabilities. As an example, we've recently launched Kira, a newly developed natural language chat interface for our insights team, helping them analyze complex and diverse data to drive deeper understanding of our brands, markets, and power swifter decision-making as a result. As I mentioned earlier, we have reiterated our guidance for the full year.
As a reminder, that is for between 3% and 4% revenue growth, around 7% operating profit, and comparable free cash flow of at least EUR 1.7 billion, which will be half two-weighted as usual. Today's dividend declaration and our continuing share buyback program demonstrate the strength of our business and our ability to deliver continued shareholder value. Just before we take your questions, and a reminder of our Sustainability Webinar on Thursday, which will provide details on progress on our business forward targets, which we've now updated to include the Philippines. Again, thank you for your time today. Ed and I will now be very happy to take your questions, and I hand the call back over to you, operator.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we kindly request only one question per analyst. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. It will only take a few moments. Thank you. First question today comes from Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Afternoon, Damian. Afternoon, Ed. My question is really around, you know, the current period of inflation and volatility. I mean, when you look back at the last round of inflation volatility in 2022, I'd love you to compare and contrast, you know, what you're seeing today versus then, you know, based on what we know today. COGS looks a little bit less bad for 2027. Consumers could be a little bit more fatigued. I mean, how do you adjust your playbook, you know, for this picture? You know, listening to your opening comments just now, Damian, it does sound like the degree of taste pack promo innovation is pretty much at the fullest it's been, you know, for a long time.
You know, how is that helping to, you know, play into, you know, what you're looking to achieve?
Yeah. Thanks, Ed. Maybe I'll just talk to your last point and then hand the call to Ed in terms of how we see it versus 2022. I mean, I think you're spot on. We've been working really hard to continue to bring a lot of innovation and excitement to the categories. We think that, as the obviously brand leader, category leader, that's a primary responsibility. You're seeing that hitting the market, whether that's with Coke Zero Zero or a number of our other innovations. We see consumers and shoppers responding to that. I mean, value is still important. We know that for a lot of our shopper base.
Over the last couple of years, I think we've navigated that opportunity really well, providing available affordability, but also not forgetting that ultimately what drives the category is innovation, excitement, and passion. I think with the assets we have this year, whether it's FIFA or some of the assets coming in the second half of the year, we will be able to navigate, you know, nicely that balance of creating category excitement and growth, which is ultimately what our customers expect from us, and manage some of those affordability and inflationary challenges. Don't see it as 2022, to be honest. Maybe I'll just pass to Ed, and he'll give a bit more color on how we, how we're thinking about that.
Yes, thanks, Damian. Thanks, Ed, for the question. Yeah, we've learned a lot, I think, from 2022. As we look at these type of crisis, we really split our activities into three areas. Firstly, making sure we have security of supply. So we've done a lot of work over the last few years in making sure we have multiple sources of supply for key commodities and materials, and we're not dependent on particular geographies or particular suppliers and have multiple contingencies for the supply. As we sit here today, we're in great shape and no material risks from a supply perspective. The second area is around cost, as we see the impact on input prices.
As you know, we have a very extensive hedging program, and we're over 85% hedged now for the remainder of the year. Actually since 2022, we've also started working directly with suppliers, and hedging their exposure or looking at how they can reduce the risk within their supply chain, because obviously otherwise, that ultimately can get passed on to us. We're in good shape, certainly for 2026 in terms of that hedging. Finally, is the impact on demand. I think what is similar to 2022 is that, I think the crisis isn't specific to soft drinks or ourselves. It's gonna be a general challenge on inflation across all of food and drink, which in turn can impact consumer demand.
But as we sit here today, you know, we don't think it will be as severe as 2022. Obviously, we monitor the situation carefully. As you also know, we've got a number of our RGM techniques, a very broad portfolio from a brand and pack perspective. There's a number of levers we can pull if things do change to mitigate the risk. But yeah, lots of learnings back from 2022.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take the next question. This is from Bonnie Herzog from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
All right, thank you. Hi, everyone. I wanted to ask about the volume improvement in APS. I guess I was hoping for some more color on what's driving this and how sustainable you believe this is. Also, you know, you touched on encouraging sparkling volumes in Indonesia, so could you provide a little more color on, you know, maybe what innovation and/or activation or marketing is driving this and how we should think about the ultimate opportunities you have in sparkling in that market? Thank you.
Hi, Bonnie. Yeah, thank you. I mean, we're very pleased with our APS volume performance overall. I think there's a number of areas that I'd call out. I mean, firstly, our businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands in particular, have been performing really strong on our, particularly on our sparkling category, and we see that being very sustainable. As you know, we've had the exit of some of our Suntory assets out of there, so that's made the numbers a little bit bumpier, but that's nearly through now. Underlying our sparkling business in those markets is performing really well and benefiting from many of the activities we talked about earlier in terms of new flavor innovation, pack innovation, and great marketing assets.
Philippines has performed well, and continues to be a market that we, you know, really get excited about in terms of its long-term growth, not just on our core sparkling. We've now launched energy. We've brought back Lift, we've got some good brand innovation going into the Philippines. You know, we see that business performing in line with our expectations. Indonesia, you know, it was great, particularly for our team locally to enjoy a successful Ramadan and festive period, really all driven by sparkling, Bonnie. You know, if you look at our underlying numbers, you know, our tea proposition in Indonesia is still work in progress. We're very happy with where we've got to with our sparkling portfolio. Really what's been driving that is continued investment for the Coke company against the consumer.
As we've talked about before, building more relevance for our brands and therefore, the sparkling category. We've made some good decisions around route to market, which we've talked to, which meant we were a very resilient and stable business during Ramadan in terms of just getting all those cases out. That was great. Clearly we're looking at, you know, as we move forward, you know, how do we continue to drive a sustainable affordability so the consumers can enter the sparkling franchise in Indonesia. That's really what drove the business year-to-date. That will be what drives it for the rest of the year. And we're excited about it, and I think it's great to have a winning Ramadan. As you know, that's a key period for us in that market.
Across APS, lots of positive signs coming out of Q1. A lot to do still, which is great. I think that sets us up for multi-year growth in that region, which is really what excites us.
All right. Thank you. Very helpful.
Thank you. Next question is from Matt Ford from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Afternoon, all. Just one question, I suppose, on the portfolio. I think in, within Q1, I think you've, you know, reported Original Taste Coke volumes down, around 3% with growth in APS offset by Europe. Obviously, you had very strong growth in your Zero Sugar and Diet Coke portfolio. Just be interested, Damian, to get your thoughts on, you know, obviously you've got a lot planned for Q2 and beyond, World Cup activation, you know, the new can format for Coke. I'm just interested to get your thoughts on, you know, how confident you are in that sort of Original Taste volume picking up as we move through the year.
Whether actually some of the growth here was being cannibalized by the, you know, the low sugar part of the portfolio. Just one follow-up, I suppose, on that potentially related is just on Easter and Ramadan. If you're able to potentially quantify, you know, how much of a, how much of a boost that was or if that had any impact on this on this Coke picture. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. I mean, there's a couple of elements to your question that I call out. I would say absolutely our sugar-free offerings continue to accelerate. We, you know, we see that across all of our brands, but particularly led by Coke Zero. Then also we see Diet Coke, as I called out, continuing to benefit from, you know, more focus, more investment. Again, we've talked about that last year that we see those two brands as being key to our midterm growth. It's great to see Diet Coke and Coke Life responding. On Coke Original Taste, I mean, there's a couple of dynamics I'd talk to. One, the brand's performing really strongly, particularly in single serve and smaller pack formats.
We are seeing some of those revenue margin and growth management moves working, whether it's mini cans, small cans. Clearly, the half-liter can where we have, it's performing really well, although it's very early days. Most of the volume weakness has been on large PET. That's, you know, that's been a trend for a number of quarters now. Some of that moves back into Coke Zero, which is great, and some of it moves back into smaller packs in terms of frequency and convenience. You know, we'd expect that trend to continue, which is why we continue to look at building out, whether it's Coke Zero Zero or Cherry on our zero offerings, but also supporting Coke Classic with flavor innovation as well.
In a lot of our markets, for the first time, you'll see a bigger focus on Coke Original Taste Cherry, and some more innovations on Coke Original Taste because that brand also responds really well to innovation and excitement. It'll lead our FIFA campaign as we get into the summer, and will remain, you know, our flagship brand across all of our activations. Yeah, you know, I think it's long term, really good to see the category in robust health. It's driven by sugar-free, as we've talked about. You know, the taste quality of our sugar-free propositions now is just excellent, and we see consumers continuing to respond to that.
As we look at guidance for the full year, as we look at our midterm guidance, you know, that dynamic we will continue to factor into our numbers, Matt, because particularly in our developed markets, we see it as a very healthy dynamic.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. This is from Simon Hales from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Damian, Ed, and Sarah. Damian, could you just talk a little bit more about the channel performance you saw in Europe through Q1 and perhaps what we've seen into Q2? A bit of a slowdown in away-from-home, a pickup in at-home. I understand that's probably a function of the Easter timing impacting, but have you seen a return to more of the long-term trends we've been seeing more recently, i.e. a firmer away-from-home offtake trend as we've come into April? Interested in your thoughts on how we think those different channels should evolve over the coming quarters.
Yeah. We're not seeing a significant change in what we saw coming out of last year, Simon. Clearly, the Easter occasion, particularly in Europe, is a much more at-home occasion, so we do over-index on large packs. You know, that also flowed into our revenue per case performance as well, but that's quite normal. It's a very big period, particularly for markets like Germany. We continue to focus heavily on away-from-home. You know, we're enjoying a little bit of good spring or could I even dare say early summer weather in Northern Europe. That's definitely giving away-from-home a boost as we get into April.
Clearly it's a, it's a channel that performed well for us last year on the back of solid investment, whether it's coolers, new customer wins, and a lot of that product innovation we talked about, particularly in energy, is also supporting our away-from-home growth. Yeah, nothing to read into in Q1. Clearly away-from-home's key focus period for us now is really in Europe, is in the next couple of quarters. We're well set up for a strong performance as we get through the summer.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Richard Withagen from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Damian, Ed, and Sarah. I have a question on Europe. How should we view the price mix in Europe? We had obviously Easter and the large pack, they had an impact in the first quarter. Maybe you can talk about what is the underlying trend, and should we assume any pressure on price mix in the remainder of 2026, given the inflationary pressures in Europe from higher energy prices?
Thanks, Richard. We were pleased with quarter one in terms of an overall revenue growth of 9.8% in total. I'm pleased as well with the makeup of it. Obviously, the biggest proportion was from volume with the extra days at just over 8%.
Within the mix, we saw quite a few different factors. We continued to see the very positive brand mix that we saw last year, fueled by energy. We did see some positive package mix, but it was offset because of the impact of Easter, which as we just talked about, is more of a future consumption, multi-serve occasion at home. Generally a lower revenue per case. Nevertheless, when you add that with the brand mix, we did overall see positive mix. We did see a slight headwind from country mix with G.B. and Germany growing slightly faster, and they're slightly lower revenue per case versus the other markets in Europe.
We did see some headline price and benefit from the sugar tax in France last year. Happy with the makeup. As always, I think it's a bit dangerous to look at one quarter in isolation as the promotional program does move around. As we look at the year as a whole and given what we see today, including the impact of the Middle East crisis, we continue to see a balanced makeup of our 3%-4% revenue growth for the year with a nice split between volume mix and rate.
Thanks, Ed.
Thank you. The next question is from Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. Forgive me for the predictable question, but I'm sure a lot on the call are wondering. Given the news last week on the Pepsi bottling agreement to change hands in Denmark and Finland in 2029, can you talk to your ability and/or desire to get those Coke markets and perhaps, you know, a refresher for us how these discussions with Coke have worked in the past for you when it comes to gaining new markets? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. We were expecting that question, so thank you for asking it. Yeah, we've talked a lot about our broader ambition to become a bigger bottler in the Coke family, really since we started over 10 years ago. That ambition remains constant. As we think about what we can do to make that happen, clearly performance is key. We remain very much focused on performing where we've got the bottling licenses, and I think our Q1 numbers reflect that. The second is obviously our balance sheet and capital allocation framework retains the capability to do a transaction, so we're in a good place financially.
Ultimately, it comes down to having conversations with The Coca-Cola Company about how they see the future of those markets and if CCEP can play a role in really unlocking value for the company, obviously for our shareholders, but most importantly for the consumers and customers within those markets. I mean, we believe we're well-positioned with our other businesses in the Nordics to do that, and we'll continue to keep a close eye on developments about what happens after those announcements last week. Yeah, obviously stay close to our biggest partner, The Coca-Cola Company, to see how their view in those markets evolves.
As always, not just for those markets, but for other bottling franchises that may present themselves of an opportunity, we remain, yeah, with a healthy appetite and a humble desire to try and continue to grow the CCEP family.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Lauren Lieberman from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Wanted to just talk a little bit about price pack architecture plans. I know, Damian, there's a bunch of this information on this in your prepared remarks, just thinking about the consumer environment, concerns around European consumers, kind of, you know, in the context of the Iran war and higher energy prices, just any, you know, adjustments that you may be making on that front. Then part and parcel with that is G.B. was really strong this quarter, I know you mentioned Zero Sugar, Diet Coke, and Monster, but anything you can share about the end market execution that were maybe key accelerators, the momentum this quarter versus that low single digit volume number that you know, put up last year. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Lauren. Maybe first to G.B. I mean, I think the team have had a number of really strong quarters. A lot of what we talked to last year also benefited Q1, where we've had, you know, a lot of good execution improvements and customer wins and away-from-home. That's definitely supporting our growth and will continue for the year. Good brand pack innovation from both The Coca-Cola Company and Monster. That's definitely helping. We clearly continue to invest behind our brands in store. Obviously, that's featured around Diet Coke, but particularly Coke Cherry. We had a big push around Coke Cherry in Q1, and that's definitely helping us as well.
I think G.B. has had another great quarter and we're well set up for another good Q2 and into the rest of the year. A lot of innovation and a lot of good execution. Back to your first question. I mean, we've been, you know, for a number of quarters now, balancing, you know, price, value, relevance to our consumers on the back of, you know, previously cost of living pressures, now cost of living due to energy. You know, obviously as we come out of winter, while they remain a concern, it does get a little bit easier in Europe, particularly on the domestic front. As Ed talked to internally and with our suppliers, we're managing those higher fuel costs through to the end of the year.
As you know, in Europe, market by market, it's quite different, but we can have up to 30%-40% of our retail volumes on promo. We already have quite a, I would say, a high level of investment against that need state of value. As always, we'll continue to look at that as we go through the year to see if we need to make any changes. On the other side, in some of our markets, we'll also look at whether pricing in the latter part of the year is also going to be part of our plan as we also look into 2027. You know, we're balancing both sides of that equation, Lauren, at the moment.
Great.
Thank you. Next question is from Charlie Higgs from Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please go ahead.
Hey, Damian, Ed, hope you're well. I wanted to dig a bit more into the Philippines performance, please. I think it picked up quite nicely in Q1. What's been the driving force? Is it still trademark Coke or are you seeing some good success with expanding the sparkling flavors, Predator, ARTD? How are you thinking about energy shortages in the Philippines? I think from memory, your partner there has a very good energy business. Are you seeing any impact at the consumer level or in your distribution supply chain? Thanks.
I mean, I suppose to answer the last part of that, Charlie, from a kind of Ed's point earlier, we've been very focused on continuity of supply, and we've, you know, we have that in the Philippines. We're in good shape there. We are obviously keeping a very close eye on what's happening with the consumer and the higher fuel prices and how that may impact spending. We've a very affordable proposition, as you know, in the Philippines anyway, particularly led by RGB. We plan to maintain that through the rest of the year, and that really gives a good entry point. If consumers come under even more pressure on energy or utility bills, I think our affordability strategy will definitely help us.
I think broadly speaking, beyond that, the Philippines, you know, continues to benefit from a really strong route to market. We're also unlocking some of the supply chain bottlenecks. I mentioned in my statement it's a bit away, but we'll have our greenfield up and running next year. Since we took over that business, as you know, we've put in a lot of capital, both in terms of manufacturing, but also in terms of bottle floats. I think that's just unlocking volume as well for our sales teams. When I speak to Gareth and the team there, it definitely makes the sales team's life easier having, you know, RGB in particular, at a good stock level. We expect that to continue.
It is a market where we'll continue to look at energy contingencies, but so far, we've been in good shape, Charlie.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Robert Ottenstein from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you very much. Damian, I was wondering if you could give us an update on your implementation of artificial intelligence tools, kinda where you are in the journey, maybe surprise learnings. And also more specifically, is this something that you see eventually integrating with some of your major retail partners and helping grow the entire space, optimize shelf sets and, you know, any green shoots along that front? Thank you.
Thanks, Robert. Definitely a lot happening in that space. Maybe just to call out some of the areas that we're utilizing it and seeing benefits. I think we talked to these before. Certainly, in the planning and forecasting area, I mean, we're getting a much higher degree of accuracy around planning, and obviously that allows us to do a lot in terms of asset utilization, inventory levels, and customer service levels. That's working really well. Like most companies, and I'm sure you hear this in all your calls, tools like Copilot, we've rolled out across our business to, you know, make everybody's job easier and to lean into AI to see what we can develop and learn more from. Beyond that, it's clearly part of our partners' tools, particularly with Salesforce and ServiceNow.
You know, we use a lot of their kit, embedded in that now is AI functionality, so we are benefiting from that. I would say, where I would like us to continue to get better at, is really around the trade promo optimization. I mean, that's a big value pool for us. As I mentioned in my comments to Lauren, we do invest a lot behind promo and value, and we continue to learn using AI on how to use that more efficiently and effective. You know, while we've been using it, I would say we're at the beginning of that journey, that's super exciting. The tools are getting better, which will allow us to continue to leverage that big investment, year-on-year. It's touching on all aspects of our business.
We are using it with customers on a couple of levels. One, a number of our customers provide us with outlet-level sales information. There we can really quickly in-store, you know, look at that data, manipulate it, and then to your point, play it back to fairly basic conversations around share of shelf, cooler space, products on display. And as we also look at our promo optimization, we are building in shopper and customer level information. We get to see what's the impact on household penetration, on frequency, and also on loyalty, which is a key metric for a lot of our retailers. A lot happening. Nowhere near, I would say, getting near the end of that journey. As much progress as we've made and as much of investment we've put in, it's still a really exciting journey.
You know, while we're not at the beginning, we're probably on the way to the middle, I'd say. That's quite a bit away. A lot happening with digital twins in our manufacturing as well, as an example of where we're using AI. Super exciting, and something to your point that our customers really want to lean into as well for their business. It's a great conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for the question. Damian, you touched on the strong performance in G.B. The other market that looked very solid is Germany, which has returned to volume growth. Could you give a bit of color, please, on what's behind this performance in Germany? Is it the adjusted promo strategy or more than that? And on the sustainability there of Germany in the remainder of the year? Conversely, France seems to have remained quite soft despite an easier comparison. Could you comment a bit on France, how that is looking? Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, I think on Germany, Andrea, we certainly see a big benefit from Easter Q1. I would say, you know, while we're really happy to see volume growth return, it remains quite a competitive market, and I see that remaining through the rest of the year. It is great that we did have a winning Easter, both in terms of share and volume. That gives us momentum into April, but we need to continue to look at some of our price promo architecture in Germany to keep that volume growth sustainable, you know, through Q2 and into next year. Great start to the year. I would have to say a lot of it is Easter-driven. Still more work to do in Germany, we're excited at the progress we could make in Q1.
I'm actually pleased with France. You know, we've had a lot of pricing inflation on our core brand there on the back of taxation. As we've kind of come through cycling that, you know, I think the team has done a great job in France. I was really pleased with the March performance, but also, how we're looking into the rest of the year. Yeah. Yeah, I think the tax in France was disruptive, but we're through it now. Germany, great start to the year. More work to do, but an encouraging start.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. That was the final question. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Damian Gammell for his closing remarks. Damian, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Again, thank you everybody for taking the time to join us. I know it's a busy week when it comes to earnings. It's a busy day, appreciate you taking the time. As Ed and I have spoke to, we're really pleased. Good start to the year with solid underlying volume growth beyond the benefit of an early Easter and a continued progress on our mix. Critically, we remain the number one value creator, gaining share in categories that remain really attractive for our consumers and our customers. Despite the uncertain backdrop, we do remain resilient and very pleased to be reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance today. Clearly, as you'd expect, we'll continue to monitor the situation closely and as always, we'll adjust our plans accordingly. There's a lot to look forward in the rest of the year. Big FIFA activation coming.
We've got our Panini stickers and a lot of innovation coming across all of our brands through to the end of the year and indeed into 2027. Dividends are now 50% complete on our 2026 share buyback, demonstrate strength of our great business and our ability to continue to deliver shareholder value. Look forward to catching up with you after Q2. Have a great summer and speak to you again in August. Thank you, everybody
Thank you. That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating, and you may all disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-02-18Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Q4 2025 Earnings Call Summary
Moby
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Q4 2025 Earnings Call Summary
Achieved record revenue and profit by balancing headline pricing with a significant shift toward high-margin brand and pack mix, particularly in away-from-home channels. Attributed European volume pressure in France and Germany to specific fiscal headwinds, including a substantial sugar tax increase on core sparkling brands. Executed a major operational pivot in Indonesia, reducing manufacturing sites from eight to five and transitioning to a distributor-led route-to-market to improve long-term cost-to-serve. Capitalized on the energy category's evolution from functional to mainstream, with Monster volumes growing nearly 20% through expanded cooler placement and Zero-sugar innovation. Achieved record high sparkling value share of 77% in the Philippines, supported by efficiency delivery and customer wins like the 1,300-strong Angels Burger chain. Prioritized 'Revenue and Margin Growth Management' (RMGM) to offset inflationary labor costs, focusing on promotional effectiveness over pure volume discounting. Accelerated digital integration by establishing a new shared service center in Manila to harmonize global processes and deploying AI for enhanced demand forecasting. Guidance for 3% to 4% revenue growth accounts for a 0.5% to 1% headwind resulting from the strategic exit of the Suntory distribution agreement. Assumes a balanced revenue contribution for 2026, split approximately one-third each between volume, price, and brand/pack mix. Anticipates a modest increase in interest expense as debt from the Amatil acquisition is refinanced, while maintaining a low weighted average cost of debt at 2.5%. Projects cost of sales per case to grow by 1.5%, supported by a 80% hedge position on commodities for the full year 2026. Plans to maintain capital expenditure at approximately EUR 1 billion to fund infrastructure projects like the new Tarlac plant and digital AI capabilities. The transition away from Suntory brands is identified as a near-term revenue headwind but a long-term necessity for a more integrated Coca-Cola aligned platform. Identified promotional price thresholds in Germany as a key learning point where consumer hesitation impacted frequency during the first half of 2025. The effective tax rate is expected to remain at an elevated 26%, impacting EPS growth relative to operating profit expansion. Management flagged macroeconomic slowdowns in Indonesia as a…Read full documentShow less
Achieved record revenue and profit by balancing headline pricing with a significant shift toward high-margin brand and pack mix, particularly in away-from-home channels. Attributed European volume pressure in France and Germany to specific fiscal headwinds, including a substantial sugar tax increase on core sparkling brands. Executed a major operational pivot in Indonesia, reducing manufacturing sites from eight to five and transitioning to a distributor-led route-to-market to improve long-term cost-to-serve. Capitalized on the energy category's evolution from functional to mainstream, with Monster volumes growing nearly 20% through expanded cooler placement and Zero-sugar innovation. Achieved record high sparkling value share of 77% in the Philippines, supported by efficiency delivery and customer wins like the 1,300-strong Angels Burger chain. Prioritized 'Revenue and Margin Growth Management' (RMGM) to offset inflationary labor costs, focusing on promotional effectiveness over pure volume discounting. Accelerated digital integration by establishing a new shared service center in Manila to harmonize global processes and deploying AI for enhanced demand forecasting. Guidance for 3% to 4% revenue growth accounts for a 0.5% to 1% headwind resulting from the strategic exit of the Suntory distribution agreement. Assumes a balanced revenue contribution for 2026, split approximately one-third each between volume, price, and brand/pack mix. Anticipates a modest increase in interest expense as debt from the Amatil acquisition is refinanced, while maintaining a low weighted average cost of debt at 2.5%. Projects cost of sales per case to grow by 1.5%, supported by a 80% hedge position on commodities for the full year 2026. Plans to maintain capital expenditure at approximately EUR 1 billion to fund infrastructure projects like the new Tarlac plant and digital AI capabilities. The transition away from Suntory brands is identified as a near-term revenue headwind but a long-term necessity for a more integrated Coca-Cola aligned platform. Identified promotional price thresholds in Germany as a key learning point where consumer hesitation impacted frequency during the first half of 2025. The effective tax rate is expected to remain at an elevated 26%, impacting EPS growth relative to operating profit expansion. Management flagged macroeconomic slowdowns in Indonesia as a persistent risk, though early 2026 indicators show stabilization in the sparkling category. Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management explained that the EUR 1.7 billion free cash flow floor for 2026 reflects a deliberate choice to increase net CapEx investment in high-return projects. The company stated they do not want to constrain their ability to invest by quoting a free cash flow target that is too high, as they see opportunities for strong business cases with great returns in 2026. In France, the strategy involves trialing smaller pack variants to hit lower price points while simultaneously pushing the Zero-sugar portfolio to bypass sugar taxes. In Germany, management is reinvesting in value propositions and adjusting promotional price points that previously exceeded consumer psychological thresholds. Management expects mid-teen growth to be sustainable, noting that half of the growth is driven by core products and half by innovation. Highlighted that Zero-sugar variants are making the category more accessible to a broader consumer profile beyond traditional energy drink users. The center serves as a global asset to de-risk operations by providing a secondary hub to the existing Bulgaria center. It offers a time-zone advantage for supporting the APS region and allows the company to tap into high-quality digital and analytical talent in the Philippines. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here.

