The Coca-Cola reported today a 22 per cent drop in fourth-quarter profit despite a solid gain in sales. The results excluding one-time items beat Wall Street expectations.
The Atlanta-based company said it earned $678 million, or 29 cents a share, for the three months ending December 31st, compared to a profit of $864 million, or 36 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.
Excluding one-time items, Coca-Cola said it earned $1.23 billion, or 52 cents a share. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings of 50 cents a share in the fourth quarter.
Revenue rose 7 per cent to $5.93 billion from $5.55 billion in the same period a year ago.
For all of 2006, Coca-Cola said it earned $5.08 billion, or $2.16 a share, compared to a profit of $4.87 billion, or $2.04 a share, for the same period a year ago. Twelve-month revenue rose 4 per cent to $24.09 billion, compared to $23.10 billion in 2005.
Coca-Cola's report came a day after its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, reported a 1.7 billion loss for the fourth quarter and said it would cut about 3,500 jobs, or 4.7 per cent of its work force.