Coca-Cola Hellenic, one of the world’s largest bottling firms, has posted its first half results for 2015, saying that volumes in its Irish business ‘increased by low single digits’.
In a statement, the group said that ‘Volume grew [in Ireland] in all key categories, with the exception of Juice’. The sparkling beverages category, it said, ‘was the key growth driver, with Coke Zero growing by 11% and Fanta by 9%’.
Overall, while volumes were up 3.8% across Coca-Cola Hellenic’s pan-European operations, net sales fell by 1% to €3.15 billion, ‘as a 4.6% adverse impact from currencies more than offset volume gains’.
“We are pleased to have achieved strong results, with good volume growth and a significant improvement in margins,” said Dimitris Lois, chief executive officer of Coca-Cola HBC AG. “Our strategic initiatives are delivering, both through our commercial strategy designed to drive growth and ongoing efficiency improvements.”
Commenting on its performance, Phil Carroll, beverage analyst with Shore Capital, said, “The performance in Q2 2015A builds on that of the Q1 result, generating a strong H1 performance. Whilst FX has continued to be a headwind, a strong underlying volume performance, along with easing input costs and cost efficiency initiatives, has resulted in comparable EBIT performance comfortably ahead of our and the market’s expectations.”
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
