Coca-Cola third-quarter sales miss; shares slip

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co reported lower-than-expected third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, hurt by revenue declines across all its businesses, sending shares down 2 percent in premarket trade.

The world's largest soft drink maker said on Tuesday that net income rose slightly to $1.90 billion, or 81 cents per share, from $1.89 billion, or 81 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding a charge, Coca-Cola earned 82 cents per share. On that basis, analysts on average were expecting 81 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net operating revenue fell 4 percent to $8.04 billion, missing analysts' average estimate of $8.11 billion.

Overall sales by volume rose 2 percent, after rising 4 percent in the second quarter and 2 percent in the first quarter.

Coke's growth in developing markets such as India and China is helping it weather a slowdown in the United States.

Third-quarter volume rose 7 percent in Latin America, 6 percent in the Pacific region and 2 percent in the company's Eurasia and Africa segment. Volume fell 2 percent in Europe and 4 percent in North America.

Coke's rivalry with PepsiCo Inc took a new turn this summer when the No. 2 soft drink maker said it would acquire its two largest bottlers after a decade of operating separately.

The $7.8 billion deal led analysts to wonder if Coke might eventually follow suit to erase a competitive advantage, but Chief Executive Muhtar Kent has since repeatedly expressed his commitment to the franchise model, by which Coke sells drink concentrate to bottlers that package and sell the drinks.

Coke said it was on track to achieve $500 million in annualized savings by the end of 2011, with plans to deliver more than half of the savings by the end of 2009.

Atlanta-based Coke's shares were down 2 percent at $53.70 in trading before the market opened.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Derek Caney)

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