James Quincey
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Coca-Cola
Thanks, Robin, and good morning, everyone.
After a good first-half of 2024, we navigated through a dynamic external landscape during the third quarter. Our business again proved to be resilient. Volume declined 1% in the quarter, driven by a slow start in July. However, our business trends improved each month and notably Trademark Coca-Cola volume outperformed during the quarter. Our year-to-date 2024 performance gives us confidence we will deliver at the high-end of our previous top-line guidance, and earnings growth of 5% to 6%, including approximately 9% of currency headwinds.
With that as context, I'll start with an update on the global consumer landscape and a review of the third quarter business performance. Then, I'll explain how we're delivering on our objectives by staying agile and improving execution of our strategy across each facet of our growth flywheel. John will end by discussing financial details for the quarter, our updated guidance for full year 2024, and some early considerations for 2025.
During the quarter, global consumer sentiment and spending, in aggregate, held up well, and our broader industry continued to expand. In this context, we delivered robust organic revenue growth with value share gains in both at-home and away-from-home channels. We also expanded comparable margins. This led to 5% comparable earnings per share growth despite nearly double-digit currency headwinds, and the impact of bottler refranchising. We continue to demonstrate staying power as the beverage industry remains attractive with many strong, new, and existing players. Our system is well-positioned to develop the commercial beverage industry in many markets and capture long-term balanced growth.
Across the world, we are leveraging our scale and local expertise to navigate varying local market dynamics. In North America, we generated robust top-line growth and won value share. Trademark Coca-Cola and sparkling flavors both grew volume. During the quarter and year-to-date, Trademark Coca-Cola and fairlife were the leaders in the beverage industry in at-home retail sales growth. Consumers are responding well to sharper value messaging in away-from-home channels, and we're continuing to drive affordable and premium packages across our total beverage portfolio to realize positive mix.
In Latin America, volume was flat during the quarter as we cycled strong growth in the prior year. We had solid revenue growth led by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and Powerade. We also benefited from integrating marketing activations across the region. For example, in Brazil, Rock in Rio reached over 70 million people and led to Trademark Coca-Cola being the most mentioned brand on TikTok. Stepped up execution by increasing cooler placement and investing in digital capabilities is also driving results.
In EMEA, we saw improved performance in Europe and strong growth across many parts of Africa. The performance in Eurasia and Middle East and North Africa unfavorably impacted overall results. In Europe, we grew volume during the quarter and benefited from the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Both Fuze Tea and Powerade continued their strong momentum and we're continuing to focus on affordable price points, value packages, tailored promotions, and premium offerings to drive demand. In Eurasia and Middle East, a confluence of headwinds led to decline in volume. While it's fair to assume pressure will persist in the near term, we are taking action. Our system is driving affordability and availability and we're leaning into the local intrinsics of our business.
In Africa, volume declined largely due to pressure in some North Africa markets. Outside of these markets, we grew volume and gained value share. Our system is investing for the long term by accelerating refillable offerings, cooler placement, and increasing manufacturing capacity.
Lastly in Asia Pacific, despite weakness in China and a couple of markets in Southeast Asia, we grew organic revenue and comparable operating income. In ASEAN and South Pacific, we gained value share led by the Philippines and Australia. The Philippines grew affordable transactions with refillable packages, and grew premium transactions with single-serve offerings. Australia prioritized affordability initiatives across our sparking portfolio, and successfully activated the Olympic Games with Powerade. In Japan and South Korea, we had solid volume growth and won value share due to good traction on brand relaunches, which leveraged enhanced taste and refresh packaging, and stepped up performance in e-commerce channels.
In China, a challenging operating environment and strategic reprioritization of our portfolio led to a decline in volume. We're continuing to focus on driving affordability across our core portfolio. Our longer-term growth ambition is unchanged and we're investing to come out ahead when conditions improve. In India, volume declined in states impacted by higher-than-normal monsoons. In geographic areas that were unaffected, volume grew mid-single digits. We remain upbeat about progress in integrated execution and our ability to capture long-term growth opportunities.
To sum everything up, while our markets continue to move in many different directions, and our agility is being put to the test, our all-weather strategy is working. We're continuing to deliver on our strategy through a combination of world-class marketing, and innovation, and excellence in revenue growth management and execution.
Starting with marketing and innovation, our refreshed marketing model is integrating digital, live, and retail experiences to connect with consumers in unique and personalized ways. The Olympic and Paralympic Games is a great example. We featured our total beverage portfolio, launched fan zones and festivals, and leveraged social channels to increase connections with athletes. Many of our brands offered customized packaging and our system-activated tailored point-of-sale displays with customers around the world. The Olympic and Paralympic games were activated with customers across over 65 markets, featured nearly 250 influencers, and demonstrated positive engagement scores across our portfolio.
Topo Chico is another example. In the US, Topo Chico is the Number 1 premium sparkling water brand. We've driven strong consumer demand with a grassroots experiential campaign in 13 cities, featuring impactful displays connecting Topo Chico to food, music, and art. In Mexico, we're applying a similar playbook. We recently launched Topo Chico's first-ever nationwide experiential activation with the Think Like an Artist campaign. This featured connections with local artists across 69 events in five cities and was amplified through social channels. During the quarter, Topo Chico trademark grew volume nearly 20% globally. Year-to-date volume has increased tenfold compared to pre-acquisition levels in 2016.
Our marketing and innovation agenda emphasizes a culture of acting boldly, learning, and not being afraid to fail, and scaling successes. Sometimes, our innovations don't hit the mark as evidenced by Coca-Cola Spiced, which we've discontinued. But our focus on bigger and bolder innovations is paying-off. Fuze Tea is a multi-year success and is scaling well across over 80 markets and Minute Maid Zero Sugar is showing promise. Sprite Chill also delivered over $50 million in retail sales after only 21 weeks in the market, and has been extended after a successful limited run.
We also innovate for different reasons. It can be to generate short-term buzz, such as the third quarter launch of the limited-edition product Coca-Cola Zero Sugar OREO, which is available in over 35 markets and Fanta Beetlejuice, which is our first-ever global Halloween activation and is offered in nearly 50 markets, or we might invest for the long-term, such as our announcement of plans to debut the Bacardi mixed with Coca-Cola in 2025. So far, in 2024, overall, we've benefited from strong velocities on our innovation and we're continuing to improve our innovation success rates versus prior year.
Moving across our flywheel, our system is step-changing execution by fully integrating our marketing and commercial plans, and investing to grow our customers' businesses, leveraging data and digitally-enabled solutions, including AI is a huge opportunity, and we are integrating digital advertising with point-of-sale messaging and offering brand price pack architecture geared to customers' individual needs. When executed efficiently, this approach can deliver promising uplifts in retail sales for our customers.
While we're focused on taking our capabilities to the next level, we're also working towards mastering the foundations that move the needle. In 2024, our system increased availability by investing in cold drink equipment and boosted our share of visible cold inventory across markets. In the past 12 months, we created $11 billion in incremental retail sales for customers, which is more than double the next five closest beverage companies combined. From 2018 to 2023, we were the leader in customer value creation for the beverage industry every year.
To summarize, we feel good about the momentum of our business. And as we look ahead, our external environment will continue to have many moving pieces, we'll continue to prioritize flexibility to navigate market dynamics locally to deliver on our global objectives. Thanks to the power of our portfolio, our system's unique capabilities and the unwavering dedication of our system employees, we're confident we will be able to deliver on our 2024 guidance and longer-term priorities.
With that, I'll turn the call over to John.
