Strong Dollar May Impact Coke's Results -- Earnings Preview

By Mike Esterl 

Coca-Cola Co. is scheduled to announce its second-quarter earnings before the market opens Wednesday. Here's what you need to know:

EARNINGS FORECAST: Net income of 60 cents is the consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, compared with 64 cents a year earlier. Coke doesn't give quarterly guidance, but reiterated in April it expects 2015 earnings per share to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage after stripping out foreign-exchange swings and one-off items.

REVENUE FORECAST: Revenue of $12.08 billion is forecast, compared with $12.57 billion a year earlier.

WHAT TO WATCH:

--- FOREIGN EXCHANGE: Coke derives most of its profit from abroad, making the beverage giant vulnerable to foreign-exchange swings when it translates results back into U.S. dollars. It estimated in April that weakening foreign currencies would represent headwinds of 7 percentage points on revenue and 10 percentage points on operating income in the second quarter. For the full year, it forecast headwinds of 6 and 10 percentage points, respectively.

-- VOLUME VS PRICE: Coke has posted tepid volume growth the last two years as consumers around the globe scaled back on soda. But lately it has been doing a better job of offsetting that by raising prices, especially in the U.S., where the company also is pushing smaller packages like 7.5-ounce "mini cans'" that cost consumers more on a per-ounce basis. Wells Fargo expects Coke to report 0.8% volume growth and 1.9% price/mix growth globally in the 2Q.

-- COST CUTTING: Investors will be watching for updates on Coke's restructuring push after it announced a $3 billion cost-cutting plan last October to redirect savings from layoffs and zero-base budgeting to more marketing. Still, J.P. Morgan expects Coke's 2Q gross margin to contract 80 to 90 basis points from a year earlier to 60.6%, hurt by foreign-exchange swings and bottler divestments. The company also could share more details about its refranchising efforts in the U.S., where it plans to divest more than half of its distribution by the end of 2017.

Write to Mike Esterl at [e-mail]

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