Coca-Cola HBC AG

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola's HBC's conference call for the 2026 third quarter trading update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be some opening remarks followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone keypad at any time and wait until your name is announced. I must also advise that this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, November 4, 2026. I will now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining the call. I'm here with our CEO, Zoran Bogdanovic, and our CFO, Anastasis Stamoulis. We'll start with some opening remarks from Zoran, and then open the floor to your questions. Please keep to one question and one follow-up, waiting for us to answer the first question before moving to your follow-up. We have about an hour for the call today, which should give plenty of time for a good discussion. I will also remind you that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our trading update this morning. With that, I will turn the call over to Zoran.

Thank you, Jemima. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining the call. We delivered another strong quarter. Demonstrating the consistency of our model and the strength of our focused execution in driving broad-based growth, despite the dynamic operating environment. Let me share three key highlights from these results. First, we delivered strong, high-quality top-line growth, building on the strength of our first half. Organic revenue increased by 9%, led by volumes, but also supported by good revenue per case growth. Revenue and volumes grew across all three segments, despite a range of market conditions. Second, investments in our portfolio and bespoke capabilities continue to set us apart. These investments support the consistency of our performance and translate into strong market execution and share gains. We have gained 70 basis points of value share in NARTD year-to-date and 40 basis points in SparkLink. I'm pleased that we were again the number one contributor to our retail customers' absolute value growth within FMCG in our European market. Another demonstration of how drive joint value creation with our customers. And thirdly, while the macro environment remains dynamic, we are well positioned to deliver on our full year targets and have made a small update to our revenue guidance today. So, a strong quarter, and I would like to sincerely thank all our teams, customers, suppliers and partners for their ongoing efforts and support. I'll now share some detail on the Q3 performance and then Anastasis and I will be happy to take your questions. I'm very pleased by the continued strong performance in Q3. Organic revenue grew 9%, led by volume growth of 5.4%, with revenue per unit case up 3.4%. supported by targeted revenue growth management initiatives and positive mix. Reported revenue grew 9.6% driven by strong organic growth and a small benefit from FX translation. Volumes expanded at a similar pace to Q2 and we saw broad-based strength across our 24-7 portfolio. I spoke at the half one results about the fantastic FIFA World Cup program we executed in partnership with the Coca-Cola company. We continue to leverage all these initiatives through the start of Q3 and built on this momentum through the summer with focused execution of our brand activations and innovation enabling us to capture the growth opportunities across our market during this important period. Our revenue growth management capabilities continue to support growth as we offer consumers choice across a wide range of occasions and price points. Affordability remained important and we maintained our focus on accessible entry packs with a good performance from pet multi-serve entry packs across markets. Alongside this, we continue to drive positive mix through targeted initiatives. Single-serve mix improved by 180 basis points in the quarter, supported by recent pack innovations. One example is the half liter Trademark Coke Super Can, launched earlier this year in Ireland, Poland, and Greece. This is an excellent single serve proposition that is resonating strongly with consumers. We are also seeing strong momentum from recently launched single serve formats in Egypt, including the half liter Trademark Coke PET bottle and the 250 ml Fury can. Overall, the quality of our execution over the summer continued to set us apart, driving market share gains across NARTD and Sparkling. Now turning to performance by category. Sparkling volumes grew by 4.5% in the quarter. Trademark Coke grew mid-single digits, driven by Coke Zero and Coke Zero Zero. During the quarter, we rolled out a new visual identity for Coke Zero across most of our markets. supported by dedicated activations and value-added promotions. The new packaging brings Coke Zero closer to the broader Coca-Cola brand look and feel, creating a more consistent and recognizable brand presence across the portfolio. At the same time, Coke Zero Zero continued its standout performance, delivering triple digit growth. Sprite grew high single digits as we tapped into summer refreshment occasions, leveraging local music festivals and activations across channels to highlight the full portfolio including the new lemon mint chilled flavor launched earlier in the year. Fanta grew low single digits driven primarily by Africa as we continue to focus on winning in food led moments. Adult sparkling volumes increased low single digits driven by Schweppes and 3 Cents. We continue to strengthen Schrepp's brand relevance in the straight drinking occasion with dedicated campaigns amplified by local influencers while maintaining mixability focus in the out-of-home channel with our global brand ambassadors. Energy continued to perform exceptionally well with volumes increasing 24.7% despite strong comparatives in line with the year-to-date volume growth. Importantly, growth was broad-based with all three of our segments growing double digits. Recently launched monster innovations are resonating strongly with consumers while sports and music partnerships continue to support growth across the whole portfolio. Coffee volumes in the out-of-home channel increased 10.1% as we recruited new outlets and grew in existing ones. Total coffee volumes declined 2.3% reflecting Our ongoing strategic decision with Costa Coffee to prioritize the out-of-home opportunity. Stills volumes increased 3.2%. Water grew low single digits, helped by weather trends, while juices grew mid-single digits, with a particularly strong performance in Nigeria. Sports drinks grew more than 20%, benefiting from FIFA World Cup activations in July, as well as local sports partnerships. For example, we launched a new powering flavor in Egypt in partnership with Al-Athli Football Club. Turning to sustainability, the science-based targets network independently validated our nature materiality assessment and prioritization. We are the first Coca-Cola bottler and one of the first companies globally to achieve this milestone. The assessment identified water as our most material nature-related impact in our direct operations. and reinforces the importance of our water stewardship priorities and in our mission refresh sustainability commitment. Now turning to performance by segment. In established organic revenue grew 8% with volumes up 5.6% and revenue per case increasing 2.3%. I'm really pleased with the level of volume growth we delivered. which was driven by strong execution across the segment and supported by favorable weather trends in Western Europe. Sparkling grew mid-single digits, led primarily by trademark coke, while energy increased high teens and stills grew mid-single digits. We saw mid-single digit volume growth in both Italy and Greece and continued momentum in Ireland, Switzerland delivered a particularly good improvement with volumes up low double digits. In developing markets, organic revenue increased 8.7% with volumes up 3.7% and revenue per case growth of 4.8%. Sparkling grew mid-single digits, including mid-teens growth in Coke Zero and triple-digit growth in Coke Zero Zero. Energy grew mid-teens despite the tough comparative. Poland delivered low single-digit volume growth with a sequential improvement from Q2. Hungary also grew low single digits, while the Czech Republic maintained its strong momentum, with volumes increasing low teens. Finally, in our emerging markets, organic revenue grew 9.8%, with volumes increasing 5.8% and revenue per case up 3.8%. Nigeria delivered low teens volume growth, supported by activations to mark 75 years of the Nigerian bottling company. Nigeria is where our business began 75 years ago and today we are as committed as ever to the country and to the wider growth opportunity across Africa. Egypt grew high single digits despite tough comparatives with good growth across sparkling and continued strong momentum in energy. Elsewhere, Romania volumes declined low single digits against the challenging consumer Backdrop, while Ukraine declined by more than 20%, reflecting the difficult environment and ongoing supply chain disruption, which started in early September. And now, looking ahead to the rest of 2026. With regards to CCBA acquisition, we have now received antitrust clearances in five of the six jurisdictions, with Tanzania remaining. We remain on track to complete the CCBA transaction by the end of the year as planned, and we'll share further updates in due course. We have delivered a strong performance through the first nine months of the year, which has enabled us to update our revenue guidance to date, now expecting organic revenue growth slightly above our 6% to 7% range. As we continue to intentionally invest behind sustainable growth and drive a healthy algorithm, We are reiterating our guidance of 8-10% organic EBIT growth.