Coca-Cola FEMSA (kof) expects that the greatest pressure on its profit margins in Mexico has already passed in the first quarter of 2023 and expects it to dissipate in the remainder of the year, company executives said.
In a conference with analysts to present the company’s results for the first quarter of 2023, KOF’s director of investor relations, Jorge Collazo, assured that the bottling company estimates that the greatest impact on its profit margins in Mexico already occurred in the first quarter of 2023.
“These pressures will gradually ease and turn into margin expansion in the last quarter of the year,” said the company’s director of investor relations.
The second bottling plant Coca Cola The largest in the world suffered during the first quarter of 2023 a 0.2% year-on-year drop in the operating flow (Ebitda) of its Mexico and Central America division, to 6,706 million pesos.
In addition, it reported an Ebitda margin of 19.9% in January-March 2023, from the 23.2% it registered in the same period last year.
Gerardo Cruz, KOF’s CFO, explained that the pressures on margins in Mexico were explained by “unusually high expenses” in labor, marketing and maintenance.
“For the fourth quarter, we expect margin expansion, ending 2023 with full-year margins at levels similar to those at the end of 2022,” said the company’s CFO.
