Soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) reported its third quarter numbers this morning, and managed to beat out analyst estimates, but shares are still selling off in early morning trading.
The reason why the market is punishing the stock is because its revenues were softer than analysts had been expecting to see. For the quarter, revenues came in at $8.04 billion, which was shy of the $8.11 billion that Wall Street was expecting to see from the company.
Excluding a one time charge, Coca-Cola showed earnings of 82 cents per share, which was above the 81 cents per share that analysts had forecast for the quarter.
The company is still facing hard times in America, but its strong growth in developing countries such as India and China is helping the company, which had overall sales growth per volume of 2% in the quarter. Its volume fell 4% in North America and 2% in Europe, while rising 7% in Latin America and 6% in the Pacific Region.
To illustrate how important China and India are to the company, consider that its volume grew by a massive 15% in China and 34% in India.
The stock is trading 2.3% lower at the open, down $1.24 to $53.55.
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