Coca-Cola FEMSA – the largest Coca-Cola franchise bottler in the world by sales volume – has announced results for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2020. The Mexico-City-headquartered firm recorded a four-per-cent drop in its total revenues for Q3.

Third quarter operational and financial highlights include:

• Consolidated volumes decreased 4.1 per cent – a sequential improvement versus the second quarter, as most markets gradually reduced Covid-19 lockdowns and social distancing measures. Volumes increased in Brazil, Guatemala, and Uruguay.

• Total revenues decreased by 4.0 per cent, while comparable revenues remained flat. Revenue management initiatives across Coca-Cola FEMSA’s operations and extraordinary other operating revenues related to tax reclaims in Brazil were offset by unfavourable price-mix effects across the firm’s markets, coupled with unfavourable currency translation effects from most of its operating currencies in South America. It was mainly driven by a 16-per-cent unfavourable translation effect from the Brazilian real.

• Operating income increased 1.5 per cent, while comparable operating income increased 7.1 per cent. Declining PET costs, favourable hedging initiatives, operating expense efficiencies, and extraordinary tax effects in Brazil were partially offset by unfavourable price-mix effects, higher concentrate costs and the depreciation of most of our operating currencies as applied to the company’s US dollar-denominated raw material costs.

• Majority net income decreased 38.8 per cent, impacted mainly by extraordinary non-operating expenses of Ps. 1,813 million (US$86.5 million). Excluding those effects, majority net income would have increased by 6.2 per cent, the firm noted.

• Earnings per share were Ps. 0.15 (Earnings per unit were Ps. 1.17 and per ADS were Ps. 11.72.).