Here’s why Citi says crypto prices have been weak recently
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) reported its third-quarter earnings for 2025, showing a steady performance with revenues meeting expectations. The company posted revenue of 5.41 billion euros, precisely matching analyst forecasts. The stock remained stable in pre-market trading, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s reaffirmed full-year guidance and ongoing strategic initiatives. According to InvestingPro data, CCEP has maintained strong revenue growth of 9.04% over the last twelve months, though analysts anticipate a slight sales decline of 0.41% for the current fiscal year.
Key Takeaways
- Revenue for Q3 2025 was 5.41 billion euros, meeting forecasts.
- The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, maintaining investor confidence.
- CCEP declared a second-half dividend of €1.25 per share.
- The ongoing €1 billion share buyback program continues.
- Strong performance in energy drinks, with Monster Energy volumes up 24%.
Company Performance
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners demonstrated resilience in Q3 2025, with volumes increasing by 0.4% and revenue rising 3.2% year-over-year. The company continues to gain market share, driven by strong performance in the energy drinks segment and strategic product innovations. Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, particularly in Germany, CCEP’s diversified portfolio and geographical reach have helped maintain steady growth.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: 5.41 billion euros (3.2% increase YoY)
- Declared dividend: €1.25 per share
- Share buyback: Continuing €1 billion program
Earnings vs. Forecast
CCEP’s revenue for Q3 2025 matched the forecast of 5.41 billion euros, resulting in no revenue surprise. This alignment with expectations underscores the company’s stable financial management and market position.
Market Reaction
CCEP’s stock price remained unchanged in pre-market trading, reflecting investor satisfaction with the company’s performance and strategic direction. The stock last closed at 86.96 USD, showing a 0.88% increase from the previous day, and remains within its 52-week range of 73.4 to 100.67 USD. InvestingPro calculations suggest the stock is slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value assessment. The company has delivered impressive returns with a 14.39% YTD price total return and a 14.82% 1-year total return, significantly outperforming its beta of just 0.38, indicating lower volatility than the broader market.
Outlook & Guidance
The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, aligning with market expectations. CCEP is confident in achieving mid-term revenue growth of 4% and continues to focus on strategic initiatives such as the World Cup activation in 2026 and investments in energy drinks and innovation. InvestingPro data shows CCEP has maintained a robust 11% revenue CAGR over the past five years, with an overall financial health score rated as "GOOD" at 2.85. The company’s strong profitability is reflected in its 35.46% gross profit margin and 19% return on common equity.
Want deeper insights? CCEP is one of 1,400+ US equities with comprehensive Pro Research Reports available on InvestingPro, transforming complex financial data into clear, actionable intelligence for smarter investing decisions.
Executive Commentary
CEO Damien Gammell expressed confidence in the company’s fundamentals, stating, "We are reaffirming our full-year guidance which is in line with existing market expectations." He highlighted the company’s strength in resilient and innovative consumer categories, adding, "We continue to grow our top line supported by share gains and we see sequential periods of volume growth in Europe."
Risks and Challenges
- Soft consumer demand in specific markets, notably Germany.
- Macroeconomic challenges that could impact consumer spending.
- Potential supply chain disruptions affecting product availability.
- Competitive pressures in the beverage industry.
- Currency fluctuations impacting international revenue.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts focused on consumer affordability challenges, particularly for large PET packages. Questions also addressed the strong growth of energy drinks across markets and the progress of business transformation in Indonesia. Executives noted plans to expand the Diet Coke strategy to other markets, highlighting the brand’s recovery in Great Britain.
Full transcript - Coca-Cola European Partners PLC (CCEP) Q3 2025:
Conference Operator: Hello and thank you for standing by and welcome to today’s Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Q3 Trading Update 2025 conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker’s remarks there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead. Sarah hello. Thank you all for joining us today. I’m here with Damien Gammell, our CEO, and our CFO Ed Walker. Before we begin with our opening remarks on our third quarter trading update, a reminder of our cautionary statements.
This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. The information in these comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today’s release as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch, and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damien. We will then turn the call over to your questions. Unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and FX neutral basis throughout year to date. Numbers will also be presented on an adjusted comparable basis, thus reflecting the results of CCEP and our Australia Pacific and Southeast Asia Business Unit, APAC, as if the Coca-Cola Philippines transaction had occurred at the beginning of last year rather than in February when the acquisition completed.
Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO Damien.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Thank you, Sarah, and many thanks to everybody for joining us today. Before I look at Q3 in more detail, I just wanted to take a moment to stand back and reflect on the performance year to date. It’s been another solid year for CCEP. We are reaffirming our full year guidance, reflecting the strength and resilience of our business. Firstly, I’d just like to do a huge call out to the 41,000 colleagues at CCEP who make this business great every single day, and as always, we continue to be supported by our strongly aligned relationships with our brand partners and our customers. We’ve delivered another quarter of volume growth in Europe despite softer consumer demand, and we continue to drive underlying growth in APAC.
The NARTD category is profitable and growing not only up by value, up around 6% this year, but also more importantly by volume, not a dynamic we’re seeing across other FMCG categories and CCEP are winning, leading the way in creating value for our customers and growing share ahead of the market. Our focus on revenue and margin growth management continues to support solid progression in revenue per unit case whilst balancing premiumization with affordability for our consumers. As you know we’ve had some challenges this year which we continue to navigate. These include some one offs such as the portfolio changes in Australia and Spain with Suntory and Nestlé and also the challenge from softer consumer demand in a number of markets like Germany and Indonesia. Absent the one off headwinds, revenue today would have been growing at a level more in line with our mid term revenue objective.
Now just touching on market share, our share overall has continued to grow. This reflects consistent share growth in the Philippines and the performance of Monster, which has grown share by just under 200 basis points this year. We have, however, seen pockets of pressure in the home channel and parts of Europe over the past couple of quarters. Our focus remains on driving profitable growth with our customers while ensuring that we continue to prioritize consumer value for money. We have continued to see good progress in Away from Home, which is not well represented in the news and share data. In GB, for instance, which is having a standout year.
We have had great success in retaining key accounts and winning new business in off and on premise across QSR sandwich and coffee shops, bars, restaurants and sporting venues, all of which has contributed to growing away from home in terms of share and volumes which have grown in Europe in every quarter this year. Our efficiency and productivity programs remain firmly on track, delivering slightly earlier than planned. Together with our top line performance we are driving strong and profitable cash generation, supporting record investment in future growth, a growing dividend and ongoing share buybacks. Our great brands, great execution and great people continue to drive the delivery of our clear and sustainable long term strategy. There is much to feel good about today.
Turning now to Q3, it’s been another solid period with volumes and revenue growing ahead of half one with volumes up 0.4% and revenue up 3.2%. This has been supported by strong brand performances across the portfolio driven by great activation, execution, and some good innovation. Coke Zero grew 6.3% in the period supported by Star Wars collaboration and the kickoff of the new exciting relationship with the English Premier League. We also saw further improvement in Diet Coke, broadly flat with growth in GB reflecting the continued success of the This Is My Taste campaign fronted by actor Jamie Dornan. Overall Coke trademark volumes were flat following lower sales of Coke Original Taste. This reflects the Philippines flooding impact, the increase in the rate of French sugar tax, and some consumer softness, particularly in Germany.
In flavors, Fanta has seen a new Icons of Horror campaign with characters including Chucky, Megan, and the Grabber adorning bottles and cans in the run up to Halloween last week. Elsewhere in flavor, Sprite performed well at 4.2% supported by new QSR listings in France and NGB with new limited edition Green Apple X. Energy has continued its excellent performance driven by Monster. We delivered volume growth of 24% during the quarter and 18% for the year to date. Recent innovation, in particular Lando Norris Ultra, the strongest ever Energy launch in Europe together with the enduring strength of our Green and White Ultra Zero, have contributed to this performance, also supported by our ongoing Cooler rollout which is driving increased distribution in Ready to Drink Tea.
Although the transition in Iberia from Nestlé Tea represents a volume headwind this year, great execution from our Spanish colleagues has supported us ahead of plan with Fuze Tea threatening its leadership of the category. The sports category also continues to grow driven by Aquarius and Powerade. Also recently introduced BodyArmor to our customers in the whole channel with listings and convenience coming from Q4. Finally, we continue to grow our share of the ARTD category, the only alcohol segment currently in growth, up around 8% in value terms this year. Jack Daniel’s and Coke is the number one ARTD SKU in GB and Spain, with Bacardi and Coke and Bacardi and Sprite continuing to drive overall share gains.
Now quickly just turning to our performance across the markets, we had a strong start to the quarter in July as we highlighted in our half one results supported by more favorable weather. In Europe we continued to see the impact of July’s flooding in Philippines in August and across the group August was more mixed from a consumer perspective with that continuing into September. This aside, in Europe we delivered another solid quarter of volume growth with volumes of 0.9% supported by continued growth in away from home and a great performance. As I mentioned in GB our revenue was up 3.2% supported by growth in revenue per case of 2.7%, slightly lower than the previous quarter reflecting an earlier price increase in GB.
Although the NARTD category continues to grow strongly, it remains as competitive as ever, notably in Germany where we’ve seen a softening in demand as affordability and value for money become increasingly relevant drivers for more consumers. It remains as important as ever that we have the right packs at the right price points across all of our channels. We continue to prioritize profitable volume growth, maintaining the optimal balance of promotions across portfolio but with more focus on mechanics and messaging to visibly emphasize value to our consumers. In GB for example, two free cans with an 8 can multipack, in Spain, a 4 for 3 on 1.25 liter bottles, or in Germany a buy 12 get 2 free on our 1 liter crate are all examples of how we continue to offer the right value proposition for our consumers.
Our results in APS for Q3 reflect the impact of some of those one-off events, namely flooding in the Philippines and as we talked about earlier, the exit of our Suntory alcohol distribution in Australia with distribution in New Zealand due to finish in December. APS volumes for the quarter were down 0.6% with revenue broadly flat excluding the Suntory impact. Performance in Australia was strong with volumes and revenue in Australia Pacific overall growing mid single digits and high single digits respectively. This is supported by continued strong growth in our Papua New Guinea business. During Q3 we agreed a new multi-year agreement with Bacardi Martini with which from this week sees us start the distribution of the Bacardi portfolio of premium spirits and ready-to-drink brands in Australia including of course Bacardi and Coca-Cola.
The latest addition to our ARTD portfolio Down Under, Q3 volumes in the Philippines were held back by the floods, which also disrupted distribution in August. With September returning to growth in Indonesia, we’ve seen the rate of decline ease versus Q2, though volumes continue to reflect a weaker consumer and macroeconomic backdrop. Our transformation of the route to market continues to progress to plan and is expected to complete by the end of this year. This will strengthen our presence and execution in the market, and we will be fit for the future. Touching now on our investments across CCEP to support our long-term growth, during Q3 we opened our largest canning line to date at our site in Queensland, a EUR 65 million investment to support the ever-growing demand for Monster, producing 120,000 cans per hour.
We also began to build our third aseptic line at our plant in Dunkirk to cater for the growing demand for brands like Powerade and Fuze Tea while also breaking ground in the Philippines on one of our largest infrastructure investments to date, the new plant in Tarlac just outside Manila. Our investment in technology saw the introduction to New Zealand of the latest innovation in cold drink equipment, Coke and Go, a new generation of smart coolers which uses AI and image recognition to offer a faster, more convenient experience to our consumers. Delivering $2.3 billion in revenue last year, we’re continuing to invest in our B2B portal MyCCEP, making it even easier for our 260,000 registered customers to do business with us. The portal is now available as a convenient app for customers in Germany, with other markets to follow over the coming months.
Revenue through our portal continues to grow ahead of our overall top line and finally our SAP rollout of S/4HANA, a key foundation for future top line and productivity gains, is progressing as expected. With the first deployment in Germany running smoothly, I would now like to return to what I said at the beginning. We are reaffirming our full year guidance which is in line with existing market expectations. We are very pleased to be declaring a second half dividend of EUR 1.25 per share which together with our first half dividend of $0.79 maintains an annualized payout ratio of approximately 50% and the current EUR 1 billion share buyback program will conclude in December. We will provide a further update alongside our full year 2025 results in February.
Looking ahead, I’m proud of the strength and resilience of CCEP and have continued confidence in our ability to deliver. The fundamentals and opportunities for our business are strong and we operate in resilient and innovative consumer categories which are healthy and are growing. We continue to grow our top line supported by share gains and we see sequential periods of volume growth in Europe and underlying growth in APS supported by unmatched capabilities in revenue and margin growth management. While the global macroeconomic environment remains volatile and we’re likely to see challenging consumer conditions persist, we will start to cycle some of this year’s headwinds, particularly during the second half as we annualize the Suntory exit in Australia.
We’re investing more than ever in our key capabilities, accelerating productivity through technology and digital, supported by the strength of our cash generation which also underpins our ability to sustainably grow returns to our shareholders. We therefore remain very confident that we have the right strategy done sustainably to deliver on our mid term growth objectives. Again, thank you for your time today and Ed and I would now be very happy to take your questions and I’ll hand the call back over to you. Operator.
Conference Operator: Thank you, thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, we kindly request only one question per analyst. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press Star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A queue. This will only take a few moments. Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Ford from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Thank you and afternoon all. My question’s on the consumer affordability point that you mentioned. Damien, I think you mentioned that sequentially throughout the quarter you were noticing in a few markets things becoming a little more challenging. I’d just like to get your thoughts on I suppose how things have developed in October across Europe and across your markets. Looking forward into the rest of the quarter and into 2026, how would you say this increased consumer pressure is likely to affect your strategy in terms of your prioritization of volume? Perhaps at the expense of price mix as you look to promote a bit more. Yes. Just to get your sense on the outlook for top line growth in Europe going into 2026 given the environment. Yes. Thanks Matt.
I would say it’s been pretty consistent now for a number of quarters that particularly in markets in Europe that consumers are responding positively to a lot of our value pricing and communication. I think what’s interesting is in parallel we have seen away from home return to growth. I think that’s a good sign across our markets as we look into next year. I think we’re assuming that that consumer sentiment will remain pretty consistent. I don’t see it getting any worse. I don’t see our pricing strategy changing. Will continue to take price. I think that’s an important part of that balanced growth. We will see volume growth next year as well as we look at our brand impact price strategy.
I think overall I think that value price point management will remain important into 2026, but we’ll give a bit more color obviously at full year results time on our guidance for next year. I would expect us to keep our balanced growth outlook for Europe, which was typically price, volume, and maybe even a bit more mix next year as we see away from home continuing to strengthen.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Afternoon, Damien, Ed and Sarah. Just to build on that same theme, I think you’re highlighting it’s not necessarily a significantly weaker consumer environment, but just to broaden it, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a soft environment with Europe. I’d love to sort of get your perspectives, Damien, on how your business today is set up to better able navigate a potentially softer environment given some of your digital tools, your RGM investments, execution, and also your category mix with energy bigger. Yes, thanks, Ed. I think as you’ve seen, we have been able to grow volume and revenue in this current environment. We’re obviously confident that will continue going into next year. What gives us that confidence are a number of the capabilities you called out. I think, one, we have invested smartly, I believe, in good capabilities around revenue and margin growth management.
That’s allowing us to hit the price points that resonate with consumers but continue to deliver value for our shareholders and for our customers. That PAC pricing architecture I think remains a core strength of CCEP. As we’ve talked about before, if you visit any of our customers, you’ll see a wide range of SKUs covering a lot of different price points. Some offer value. We still have a lot of SKUs that offer premiumization, whether that’s mini cans or glass. We still have a lot of consumers out there who are quite happy to pay a little bit more for convenience or for packaging premium. That gives us confidence in that revenue delivery. Our portfolio is evolving. As we look at obviously ARTD is a relatively new category for us, but that comes on top of our great soft drinks business.
It also comes on top of a very dynamic energy portfolio. Then we’re also looking to the future with brands like BodyArmor being launched in Spain. We’ll continue to look at can we drive a bigger sports portfolio through Powerade, really on the back of what we’ve learned from that great business in Australia. Definitely price, packaging architecture, the data and analytics around how consumers are responding to that will be key. A broader portfolio. A lot of those categories I talked about, our share position is a lot lower than it is for example in our cola franchise. That’s incremental growth. Fundamentally we see the category growing. NARTD, as I called out, is a growth category. We’re very well positioned in a category that’s growing anyway.
Participating in that and taking more share I think is definitely part of our plan for 2026. We’ll continue to work with The Coca-Cola Company and Monster on more innovation. I think we’ve seen that being a key driver, both recruiting new consumers, but also growing the categories. Across that balance, I feel pretty good about our midterm revenue guidance. On top of that, I talked a little bit about in my prepared remarks, the investment. In parallel, we are investing a lot into this business both in terms of capital and technology. We talked about it on a previous call. This will be a record year for cooler placements and that type of investment will deliver growth multiyear going forward. We see the same investment levels as we look into 2026.
A combination of all that, Ed, certainly gives me confidence. I’d also say that we continue to see positive signs coming out of Diet Coke in GB. I know we’ve talked about that before together. That has been a challenge on our numbers, particularly out of GB. It is great to see that brand responding to the investment we’ve made and the focus we’ve given it. Also, clearly in APAC, we’ve had a tough quarter in the Philippines, but that business continues to get stronger. Indonesia, while it’s not where I’d like it to be, clearly we are starting to see some early signs of that business at least getting to a more normalized performance level, which gives us a bit more confidence as we look into 2026. Long answer to your question, but it covers a lot, I think. Thanks, Ed. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Andrea Pistachi from Bank of America.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Yes. Hi, Damian, Ed, Sarah, thanks for the question. I just wanted to follow up actually on Indonesia, which you’ve just touched on. As you said, it improved in the quarter but still declining high single digit. Could you talk a bit more about, I mean, the drivers here of the improvement? I mean, you’re implementing the turnaround plan and the distribution changes should be complete now by year end. Is the improvement coming on the sparkling part mainly and tea still difficult, and your confidence of being able to finally bring Indonesia back into growth next year? Thank you. Yes, thanks. I mean, it’s a business we’re extremely passionate about at CCEP and it’s a fantastic business, but it’s clearly gone through a number of challenges.
In terms of what we’re in control of, very happy with our route to market transition that’s just finalizing now. That does set us up with a much better execution route to market, but also a more efficient cost base going into the future. That was a change that we had to make and now it’s complete and that’s gone really well from a growth perspective. We are seeing our sparkling portfolio doing a lot better. It’s all relative, but it is doing better. To your point, our drag and our performance is really on the tea portfolio. Within that, we are seeing progress on our flavor tea. That’s performing well. It’s really on our kind of more standard black tea proposition, regular tea, that we haven’t quite found the price point or the product that we need to. That’s work in progress.
I’d expect as we look into 2026, certainly a better performance on Sparkling led by brand Coke and Fanta in particular. We have Ramadan coming early in the year. That will be a great start to the year for us in Indonesia. We know that’s a period that excites our consumers but also our customers. I’m really pleased that’s coming early because I think it will really allow that new to flourish in what is a key selling period. We’re continuing to work with the Coke company on a more Indonesian-centric consumer marketing campaign and I think that’s definitely paying off. More work to do on tea, absolutely. Early days on Sparkling. Some of those macroeconomic headwinds are starting to, I would say, moderate a bit and we’re certainly seeing that in our performance as we come into the end of the year.
We will be talking about Indonesia and its opportunity for quite a while yet to come. Yeah, happy that we’re making the changes. Clearly until we get back into that mid single digit revenue growth, we still have a lot of work to do in Indonesia. Yes. Maybe just to add, I mean while it’s obviously frustrating given the long term opportunity and all the transformation we’re doing, I mean as you all know it’s not material to CCEP from a profit perspective, but we’ll continue to do the right things for the long term to unlock that opportunity. Thanks.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Eric Serotta from Morgan Stanley.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Great, thank you and good morning. Good afternoon. Hoping you could expand a little bit on the Europe away from home trends. I know you pointed to share gains but, you know, more broadly we’ve been seeing pretty strong away from home trends or positive away from home trends in Europe this year. At the same time, kind of building consumer pressures and weaker, you know, weakening at home trends. I guess how do you square the two, you know, what’s your read into the consumer there? Is there consumer bifurcation between high end and low end or middle to high end and low end? Or do you largely attribute this to, you know, your execution and share gains? Thanks. Thanks, Eric. I mean, I think we have to talk about the comps as well.
Not that that’s going to help me, but I mean clearly we have had previously a number of quarters where we did not see growth in away from home. Mathematically that helps. Beyond that though, we are seeing a number of factors. One, the category NARTD generally is in very good health in away from home. I mean people are drinking more NARTD beverages when they are out and about. We have seen good customer wins supporting our growth in the channel. We have also seen customers responding, I think, even more to some of those affordability challenges. You are seeing a lot more value deals, menu deals, early bird deals across Europe and clearly we participate in that with our customers, so that is helping. Obviously we did benefit from some good weather, particularly in northern Europe, and that is always a key driver for our away from home business.
Our cooler placements, which I talked to, our focus on incidents is also helping. I mean that’s a longer term impact on our growth. I think overall the combination of cycling a number of quarters where we were not growing and where away from home was under pressure, very good customer strategies around value, and I would say instance driving, which we participate in, and then clearly our execution capability on the back of our coolers is supporting growth. It’s great to see that coming back. I mean it’s a big part of our business, it’s a big part of our profit. It remains a priority for us to do better in terms of execution, but obviously as it grows we continue to see that as a mixed benefit in our business.
It’s not one story across Europe. I would say particularly GB is a standout. On the other side of the equation, Germany, we haven’t seen the same strength in away from home there. I would say it’s not a one size fits all. Across Europe we’ve seen really strong performances in GB but a much tougher consumer environment in Germany, and that’s something that we continue to focus on. Great, thank you.
Conference Operator: Great, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to talk a little bit about trademark Coke. Really encouraging signs on Diet Coke moving to flat and with growth in GB called out, Australia being better too. I wanted to talk, I guess, about Diet Coke, trend line, other key markets. Do you think that business can get back into mid single digit growth? Are there other markets to add to the pile that can be material? Zero sugar also accelerated this year. As I look back, I saw all the releases this morning and trend line last year was low single digits and this year you are more solidly in mid singles.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): So.
Conference Operator: Maybe talk a little bit about what supported that acceleration specific around execution or anything that you’ve been doing differently to support the acceleration in zero sugar. Thanks.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Thanks Lauren. Yeah, so maybe I’ll start with your last point around Zero Sugar. Really happy with the growth we’ve seen this year. I think that’s on the back of a number of initiatives. I think one, obviously the product is fantastic, it tastes great. Continuing to remind our consumers that compared to a number of years ago, the taste penalty for moving out of a classic into a zero is really gone. I think taste is still a key driver of our category and something we never take for granted. On the back of that, a number of the initiatives I talked to earlier, particularly around our promo strategy, our pack pricing, flavor innovation has already benefited Zero Sugar. Clearly it’s our lead brand as we look at that cooler rollout. I still think we’ve more to do.
I think we could grow faster on Coke Zero Sugar to be honest. While we’re having a great year, I’m still somewhat discontent that we could do more. It’s the fastest growing segment within soft drinks and it’s an area that I think we can and should take more share in. While we’re happy, I think there is honestly a bit more work to do on Zero Sugar as we move into 2026. As I look to Diet Coke again, it’s mainly a GB story at the moment and Australia where our two biggest markets are, I think the dedicated campaigns are definitely working. I think we clearly see that as a brand that if you support it independently it will respond and we’ve got a very loyal user base.
It’s a little bit early to think about other markets yet, but clearly what is on our mind is if that dual strategy within the Lycola segment really delivers. It’s an obvious question to think about what’s it mean for Coke Light in Belgium or in France or in other markets? That’s probably a conversation that we’ll come back to in the middle of next year. Our primary focus now is to get Diet Coke back into growth in GB and then I think we would kind of guide to what that growth would look like going forward. Clearly the first milestone is to get it into growth. When you look at Coke Trademark overall, I think a couple of challenges this year have been one in Germany where we’ve seen promotional pricing move up and that’s clearly impacted Coke Classic.
We’ve seen the tax in France, which is quite a significant price hike, and then clearly Coke Classic is by far and away our biggest brand in the Philippines. If the Philippines has got any challenges, you really see it reflected in Coke Original Taste. Some of those are one offs. Clearly, some of the pricing moves we will look at as we move into 2026. Overall, pleased with Diet Coke, early days, really pleased with Zero Sugar, but I’m a little bit discontented. I think we should be growing a little bit faster. As we talked about previously, I’m very excited with The Coca-Cola Company that we’re bringing back flavor innovation on Coke Original Taste next year, and I think that’s going to be really exciting for what is still our biggest brand.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein. Hi guys, thank you for taking my question and good afternoon. In the release and so far on the call, the weaker consumer sentiment in Europe is a key topic of discussion. Can you share a little bit of how that is manifesting itself by different demographics, so you know, whether that is age or income, to give us a flavor of where some of those pressure points are greatest, and then related to that, which specific parts might have gotten better or worse compared to last quarter. Thank you.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Yeah, thanks, Nadine. As I mentioned earlier, I mean when you look at the size of the category and you look at our pricing strategy across it, I would say many parts of our business continue to do really well. Whether that’s our single serve, our can businesses performing really well, away from home is coming back. Where we’ve really seen more of the pressure has been on the more value orientated consumers. Lower income and typically the package where that’s kind of come under the most pressure is our large PT. In Europe that’s really around your 1.5 liter to 2 liter. That’s where we definitely see the consumer, one, responding more to value, but two, also not so much decreasing frequency but the amount of product they buy.
That is really what we have been trying to address with some of that promo strategy. It is not a story across all packs. A lot of our packaging are growing ahead. It is really on that large PT and it is really probably, as I said, lower down, I think at the consumer more in the lower socioeconomic areas that we see more of the pressure.
Conference Operator: Understood, thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs from Redburn.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Yeah. Hi Damien, Ed, hope you’re both well. I’ve got a question on energy drinks please. Which despite all the talk of weak consumer actually accelerated 24% volume growth in the quarter, which is pretty remarkable. Are you able to give any color on the contribution of innovations to that growth? Versus core or a bit more color on what were the key countries that were driving that growth and perhaps within it how Monster in the Philippines has been performing since you changed the brand proposition over there. Thank you. Yeah. So Charlie, as you call out standout category and obviously Monster standout brand in our performance maybe touching on the Philippines. It’s still very early days for us there. So we’re excited about the opportunity of the energy category. It’s quite relevant already in the Philippines.
We’re new into it, so certainly more to come on our Predator proposition. We’ve made some changes around pricing there recently. As I said, early days back in Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand, the growth in energy has been really strong. I think it’s on the back of innovation and on our core. I think we look at both obviously at a lot of detail. Innovation is key to the category, whether it’s Lando, whether it’s new flavor innovation. We do see a balanced growth between innovation and core and we think that’s important. Monster Green, Monster Ultra continue to perform really strongly. You overlay that with innovation and I think that’s where you get to that mid-teen growth in the midterm that we’ve talked to. Yes.
I think it’s also something that we’re excited about going into next year. I think I mentioned on our half year call, we had a good session with the Monster group in Paris recently where we looked at two years out innovation. We see a very strong pipeline that gives us confidence. On the back of that we see a stronger growth in Away from Home where we continue to have a big opportunity to drive distribution. If you look at our Monster distribution away from home, there’s a massive opportunity for us to do better. Our cooler placements will help that and that is supporting the growth. There is a long runway ahead of us, particularly in Away from Home distribution on the Monster and on the Energy category. Yeah. Very exciting and we see that continuing into 2026. Charlie, great. Thanks, Damian.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla from UBS.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Hey, afternoon, Damien, Ed and Sarah. Just coming back to top line. So it feels like this year you’re going to be landing closer to 3% organic sales growth. Next year you’ve got another half year of the Suntory exit in Australia, a full year in New Zealand. Is it fair to say those technical headwinds make it difficult for you to hit 4% next year? Even if Europe Volumes can grow. Thanks. Thanks, Sanjeet. We are not giving guidance today for next year yet, but clearly there are some elements that will continue into next year. There are also some elements that will move out like tea in Spain. We will give a bit more color on 2026 guidance when we get to our full year results.
Clearly we’re still very comfortable with the 4% midterm guidance and I think that reflects a midterm view as some of those technical elements go away, but also as we add in a lot more innovation and we continue to see the category to grow. I’ll give a bit more color on exactly what it means in 2026 as we factor in those technical elements. As I made the point on the call, if you kind of take those out, clearly we’re pretty much bang in line with that 4% guidance. We still feel very confident about that as a midterm. Obviously we’ll be as happy as you guys will when we cycle out of some of these one offs because I certainly don’t like referencing them so often, but they are a real factor.
When you take them out, you do see us pretty much around that 4% level. There are a couple of elements that are very much in our control. One is obviously the Philippines business has been impacted in the quarter. We are seeing that returning to normal levels of growth. We talked a little bit about Indonesia, which from a profit perspective, as Ed said, is not that material. Clearly on a growth level it does have an impact and that is something we see getting better. Yes, probably a few puts and takes as we move into 2026, but net net pretty comfortable with that 4% as a midterm objective for the company. Got it. How much of the lost Beam or Suntory distribution in Australia are you able to offset with Bacardi, which is now coming online in Q4? Yeah, it is quite small.
I mean, we’re really building a new business there and we’re giving up a business that we spent, I suppose, 15, 16 years building. Yeah, it’s going to take a number of years for us to get back to a similar level of revenue, that’s for sure. Ultimately, we are building out a new portfolio and we feel good about it. Yeah, it’s definitely not going to cover it, Sanjeet, in the near term, that’s for sure. My Australian colleagues might prove me wrong, but let’s see. I think the Beam business is a very strong portfolio that we’ve moved out of, but we’re replacing it with great brands. It will take time. Got it. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Our last question for today comes from the line of Robert Edward Ottenstein from Evercore ISI.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Great, thank you very much. Not asking for specific guidance on 2026, but would love to get a sense of the kind of things that you’re focused on in 26. I think you probably are finishing up or have finished your discussions with The Coca-Cola Company. Maybe if you give us an idea of two or three initiatives that you have aligned on for 26, kind of key things, whether it’s innovation, RGM, or IT-related initiatives, and maybe touch on the World Cup and remind us traditionally, historically, how much of a factor that’s been in a given year. Thank you very much. Thanks, Robert. You’re quite correct. I’m not going to give guidance for 26 and I’ll give a little bit of color around your question, but obviously some of the elements we’re working on are things we want to keep close to ourselves.
Ultimately you mentioned one. Clearly the World Cup is a great event for our brands and we’ve already gone through a lot of planning with The Coca-Cola Company on how we make it the best World Cup activation ever. A lot of our markets are participating, so that will definitely be a big part of our summer campaign. A lot of what we’ve been doing this year will continue into 2026. That may sound a little bit boring, but clearly on the energy category, we have a pipeline of innovation that will continue. I talked about driving our distribution there, so that will continue into 2026. We’ll benefit from our cooler placements in 2025 and in 2026 going forward, so that will help. On our priority brands, particularly around Diet Coke, we’ll continue to support that.
GB in Australia, I mentioned earlier with Lauren, that’s something we reflect on. What’s it mean for the markets? Probably as we move through 2026, you’ll see more flavor innovation. On a sparkling category, you’ll see a continued focus on Coke original taste, flavor innovation. We’ve got Coke Zero going out in a lot of our markets at the moment. We’ll benefit from that in 2026. We’ve got more work to do in Fanta, so that’s something we continue to focus on, not just on innovation, but on the core proposition. Yes. So pretty full calendar, Robert, and I’d say quite balanced growth across our brands and our territories. Yes. Obviously the investment and the changes we’ve made in 2025 will benefit 2026 and we’re also looking at pricing as well. Clearly that will be part of our revenue story.
Some of that has already gone in in September this year, so we feel good about that. The balance will come in January. I might just pass it over to Ed to talk about a few other highlights. Yes, I think, Robert, from a P and L side as well, we will continue with a number of the themes we have progressed in 2025.
will be another big year of productivity and transformation for CCEP as we work towards that EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million target and another big year of investment, whether it’s another significant increase in coolers in the market, making the most of all of these capacity investments we’ve done in a number of our regions over the last couple of years and continuing to invest a lot in capabilities, whether it’s in AI and a lot of the tools we talked about earlier in the call in the RGM and MGM areas or we’ll see the first big go-lives of our SAP S/4HANA suite through many of the markets starting with Germany. Lots happening as well from a P&L and a productivity transformation perspective next year. Thank you very much.
Conference Operator: Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Damian Gammell for his closing remarks. Damian, please go ahead.
Damien Gammell, CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP): Thank you, operator. Again, a big thank you to everybody for joining us today. As you’ve heard from myself and Ed, it’s another solid year for CCEP and lots of opportunity as we look into 2026 and beyond. Really happy that we’re reaffirming our full year guidance today and clearly the next milestone I look forward to speaking to you again is with our full year results in February. With that, I’ll close the call. Again, a big thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.
Conference Operator: That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.
