Coca-Cola Co. (KO)

The Coca-Cola Company is a total beverage company whose trademarked products have been sold in the United States since 1886 and now sell in more than 200 countries and territories. It owns or licenses and markets brands grouped into five categories: Trademark Coca-Cola; sparkling flavors; water, sports, coffee and tea; juice, value-added dairy and plant-based beverages; and emerging beverages. The filing states that beverages bearing trademarks owned by or licensed to the company account for 2.2 billion of the estimated 65 billion servings of all beverages consumed worldwide every day. The company was incorporated in Delaware in September 1919, succeeding a Georgia corporation of the same name organised in 1892. It reports five operating segments: EMEA, Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific and Bottling Investments, with operating units sitting under the four geographic ones. The Global Ventures segment was sunset with effect from 1 January 2025, moving Costa, innocent and doğadan into EMEA while Costa's ready-to-drink business and the fees related to Monster went into the geographic segments.

Two lines of business

Concentrate operations sell beverage concentrates, syrups including fountain syrups, and certain finished beverages to authorised bottling partners, who combine them with still or sparkling water and sweeteners, package the result in cans and bottles and sell it to retailers. Finished product operations sell sparkling soft drinks and other finished beverages to retailers, or to distributors and wholesalers who sell on to retailers. The filing notes that finished product operations generate higher net operating revenues but lower gross profit margins than concentrate operations. Concentrate operations sit in the geographic segments, while the consolidated bottling and distribution operations sit in Bottling Investments. In the United States the company manufactures fountain syrups itself and sells them to fountain retailers, wholesalers or bottling partners, which is reported in North America, and it sells directly to consumers through Costa retail stores, reported in EMEA wherever the store happens to be.

The brands

Sparkling soft drinks include Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Fresca, Schweppes in certain countries outside the United States, Sprite and Thums Up. Water, sports, coffee and tea include Aquarius, Ayataka, BODYARMOR, Ciel, Costa, Crystal, Dasani, Fuze Tea, Georgia, glacéau smartwater, glacéau vitaminwater, Gold Peak, I LOHAS, Powerade and Topo Chico. Juice, value-added dairy and plant-based brands include Core Power, Del Valle, fairlife, innocent, Maaza, Minute Maid, Minute Maid Pulpy, Santa Clara and Simply. The company has entered the alcohol category in numerous markets outside the United States, and inside it through a wholly owned, firewalled subsidiary that uses third-party manufacturers and distributors, across pre-mixed cocktails, flavoured alcohol beverages and hard seltzers. Coca-Cola system bottlers also distribute certain Monster brands, primarily Monster Energy, in designated territories in the United States, Canada and elsewhere.

The bottling system

Most of the branded products are prepared, packaged, distributed and sold by independent bottling partners, though the company takes control of a bottling operation from time to time, often in underperforming markets, and may later sell that interest to an independent bottler. The five largest independent bottling partners by 2025 unit case volume were Coca-Cola FEMSA, across Mexico and much of Latin America; Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, across western Europe, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines; Coca-Cola HBC, across central and eastern Europe plus Egypt and Nigeria; Arca Continental, in northern and western Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, northern Argentina and Texas; and Swire Coca-Cola, in much of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and territories in 13 western states of the United States. Together those five represented 44 percent of total worldwide unit case volume.

What gets drunk, and where

The Coca-Cola system sold 33.8 billion unit cases in 2025 against 33.7 billion in 2024. Sparkling soft drinks were 69 percent of worldwide unit case volume in both years, and Trademark Coca-Cola 47 percent. The United States accounted for 16 percent of worldwide volume, where sparkling soft drinks were 61 percent and Trademark Coca-Cola 42 percent. Volume outside the United States was the other 84 percent, of which sparkling was 70 percent and Trademark Coca-Cola 48 percent. Mexico, China, Brazil and India together accounted for 33 percent of worldwide unit case volume.

From Coca-Cola's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing