Pepsi income down, but beats expectations

11 percent decline gives some indication what Coke’s earnings could be

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Pepsi Bottling Group, PepsiCo’s largest bottler, reported Tuesday that third-quarter net income fell 11 percent to $231 million, or $1.06 per share.

The results, though, beat analyst expectations by 2 cents a share, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Financial. Total case volume in the third quarter fell 6 percent, but revenues rose 2 percent to $3.8 billion as PBG raised prices on some products.

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The company said it expects full-year earnings of $2.32 to $2.38 per share, or 5 percent to 8 percent higher than last year.

PBG, based in Somers, N.Y., makes and distributes Pepsi products in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Greece and Turkey. It’s the first of the major players in the industry to report third-quarter results, providing some indicator of how the market is faring. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Co. and Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola’s largest bottler, are expected to provide their third-quarter results in mid-October.

In a conference call with analysts, PBG said sales of carbonated soft drinks declined as expected. But it said non-carbonated beverages also were down year-to-date and bottled water growth slowed more than expected.

PBG President and CEO Eric Foss said his company’s bottled water volume was hurt because it chose not to keep prices as low as some competitors.

PBG also was seeing a spread in an economic slowdown that had been confined primarily to the United States, he said. “In the third quarter, we also started to see signs that these challenging macros across the U.S. are being felt globally,” Foss said in the conference call. “This is creating category softness across geographies.”

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