The Coca Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), which has been battling declining sales of carbonated beverages, is not finding many friends on Wall Street after reporting its second quarter results.

As expected, they were weak. Net income fell 23% to $1.42 billion, or 61 cents per share, compared with $1.85 billion, or 80 cents, a year earlier, the Atlanta-based company said in its earnings press release. Excluding a non-cash impairment charge resulting from the write down of North American assets of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.
(NYSE:CCE), profit would have been $1.01. Revenue rose 17% to $9.05 billion.



The results beat the 96-cent profit and $8.83 billion revenue of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News and yet the stock is trading down because of concerns about the North American business of the world's largest beverage company. Though net revenue in the business is up about 10% so far this year, unit case volume is flat. Results in other parts of the world were much better.

"Our results were once again led by our international operations, which delivered 5 percent unit case volume growth, and we maintained volume in North America despite significant challenges," said Chief Executive Muhtar Kent in the earnings release.

Wall Street is clearly not impressed. Shares of Coca-Cola had their biggest slump today in almost four years. Coca-Cola is doing what it can to reduce costs, targeting $400 million to $500 million in annualized savings from productivity initiatives. Whether it will be enough to appease stockholders, such as Warren Buffett, remains to be seen.