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Coca-Cola HBC reported a sharp decline in first-half profit as lower volumes hurt revenue, though the consumer products business said it had seen signs of improvement amid easing lockdown measures.
For the six months ended 26 June 2020, pre-tax profit fell 36% to €167.2m on-year as sales fell 15.5% to €2.8bn.
Volumes were down 9.2% as the pandemic had a 'significant impact on the out-of-home channel, leading to lower volumes, the vast majority of which came from single-serve package formats, in turn adversely impacting price/mix,' the company said.
'The best available evidence suggests that Q2 should have been the trough of performance caused by COVID-19,' the company said.
'Our current trading continues to confirm sequential improvement. There is, however, a great deal of uncertainty on the nature, duration, extent and effectiveness of social distancing and other measures as we emerge from the withdrawal of lockdown across our territories,' it added.