LONDON (Reuters) - Soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC <CCH.L> reported higher half-year revenue on Thursday, helped by warm weather across Europe and the World Cup soccer tournament.
The bottler of Coca-Cola <KO.N> drinks said net revenue was 3.23 billion euros (£2.9 billion) in the first half of the year, up 6.4 percent on a currency-neutral basis. However, including currency fluctuations, revenue was up only 0.5 percent.
Sales volume, or the amount of drinks sold, lifted sales by 4.6 percent, while the remaining 1.8 percentage points of sales growth was due to higher prices.
Growth was mainly driven by emerging and developing markets.
Comparable earnings per share rose 4.7 percent to 60 euro cents.
The company said it continued to make "good progress" against its 2020 targets and expects to deliver "another year of revenue growth and improvement in margins".
(Reporting by Martinne Geller, editing by David Evans and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
