10 things Coke, Pepsi and the soda industry won’t say Coca-Cola witnessed a strong first half — surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate for both earnings and revenues in both the quarters — despite significant currency headwinds. Excluding the currency impact, second-quarter earnings of 63 cents per share increased 6% as improved organic sales made up for softer margins. Organic sales increased 4% driven by positive pricing and improved volumes as a result of incremental media investments. Early signs of improvement from the productivity and strategic initiatives led to better-than-expected results in both the quarters. The company increased its marketing focus in 2014 and 2015 through incremental media investments to fund brands globally and aggressive marketing campaigns like Share a Coke to accelerate top-line growth. The company’s disciplined quality advertising investments led to improved volume growth in the first half of 2015, especially in North America. Management expects 2015 to be a “transition year” — a time to start implementing changes to create a new operating model. In Oct 2014, Coca-Cola unveiled strategic actions to drive better profit growth in 2015. Other than aggressively cutting costs, the... More