Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Coca-Cola İçecek Financial Results Conference. I will now hand over to your host, Mrs. Çiçek Uşaklıgil Özgüneş, Investor Relations and Treasury Director. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Coca-Cola İçecek's third quarter 2022 financial results conference call and webcast. I'm here with Burak Başarır, our Chief Executive Officer, and Andriy Avramenko, our Chief Financial Officer. Following Mr. Başarır's and Mr. Avramenko's presentation, we will turn the call over for your questions.
Before we begin, please kindly be advised of our cautionary statement. This conference call may contain forward-looking management comments, including projections. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in our earnings release. A copy of our earnings release and financials are available on our website. Now, let me turn the call over to Mr. Başarır. Sir.
Well, thanks, Çiçek. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter's 2022 results. We reported so strong top-line growth and effectively executed our strategic priorities to create value in the third quarter as well. The external environment remained challenging and input cost inflation continued to run at the record high levels. The macroeconomic volatility in our regions, high inflation and the threat of recession started impacting the consumption growth rate.
However, despite cycling the historically best quarterly performance of the last year, we've delivered 1.1% organic sales volume growth on a consolidated level. Our growth was 7.5% on a reported basis, including Uzbekistan. Our core sparkling business grew by 11% on the back of a strong Coca-Cola and Fanta growth. On a pro forma basis, the growth of sparkling was 2%.
The number of transactions reached 3.6 billion bottles with a 5% annual increase. The high consumer price inflation environment and aggressive global tightening of credit conditions made shoppers more cautious since the summer of 2022. We maintained our disciplined approach to value creation and took the necessary price increases. At the same time, we continued utilizing revenue growth management effectively to address affordability and premiumization. Our consolidated net sales revenue increased by 156%, reaching TRY 17.4 billion. Organic net sales revenue growth was also strong at 126%. Excluding foreign currency conversion impact, net sales revenue growth was 82% on an FX neutral basis. Weaker local currencies, elevated raw material prices, and energy and transportation costs continued to create headwinds on profitability.
Timely price increases, effective RGM activities, proactive hedging and pre-buys of raw materials and disciplined management of OpEx helped to mitigate the margin pressure. In addition, margin-dilutive impact of Uzbekistan and exceptionally high margin of last year resulted in a 239 basis points contraction in EBITDA margin to 21.7% in the third quarter of this year. On a pro forma basis, margin contraction was limited to a 153 basis points. Net income also doubled, reaching TRY 1.8 billion. Next page, please. Our strategic priorities led by the growth in sparkling, iced tea and energy categories in line with our value creation focus. Continuing its strong momentum, the core sparkling category grew by 2% on a pro forma basis in the third quarter of 2022, and 11% on a reported basis.
Coca-Cola grew by 13% and Fanta by 11%. Innovative campaigns increased consumer and shopper engagement, and effective execution supported the strong momentum of sparkling category. The stills category recorded 7% growth on a solid growth in iced tea and energy drinks. The Monster Energy brand tripled volume in the third quarter. Cycling 16% growth, the water category declined by 14% in the third quarter. We continue to focus on driving sales on small packs, sparkling water and flavored water extensions in line with our value generation strategy. The sparkling mineral water subcategory grew by 40%. Registering 11% growth in the third quarter of 2022, the on-premise channel continued to be strong. Next page, please. Cycling the historically highest quarterly volume of the third quarter of 2021, Turkey volume declined by 8% in the third quarter.
High inflation, deteriorating real disposable income, and less favorable weather in the July-August period compared to the 2021 summer season were the main drivers of the slowdown in the volume. Despite volume decline, Turkey operation achieved value share gain in NARTD category during the summer. Cycling 13% growth, the sparkling category volume declined by 10% in the third quarter, while sugar-free sparkling drinks grew by 4%. The stills category grew by 6% on a sound Fuze Tea performance. The energy drinks grew close to 80% from a small base building a meaningful scale. We continue to focusing on value creation in water by growing in more profitable segments of mineral water, flavored mineral water, and IC packs of still water at the on-premise channel while reducing our exposure to the large packs of the still water category.
Accordingly, the water category was down by 10%, cycling an 18% growth of last year. The net sales revenue in Turkey was 122%, while per unit case net sales revenue by 140%. This growth was achieved with a better channel and package mix, timely price adjustments, and tight promotional management. In this challenging macroeconomic environment, we delivered in line with our quality growth algorithm, growing EBITDA ahead of our net sales revenue. Despite increasing cost pressures, EBITDA, excluding other income and expense items, grew by 136%. Thanks to revenue growth momentum, tight expense management, and timely hedging initiatives. Let me move on to the next page. On the international fronts, our sales volume grew by 20% in the third quarter of the year.
Organic growth was 1%, cycling 9% growth of third quarter of 2021. The consolidation of Uzbekistan contributed approximately 90% of the total reported growth. The core sparkling category grew by 24% on a reported basis. Pro forma growth in sparkling was 8%, led by the brand Coca-Cola. Stills grew by 9%, despite cycling 35% growth. The main drivers of the stills growth were Fuze Tea and energy drinks. Therefore, there is no meaningful difference between the pro forma and reported stills growth figures, since 96% of the Uzbekistan operation sales volume was sparkling in 2021. The water category contracted by 24.7% on a reported basis, mainly due to reduced exposure to large packs of still water in low-profit markets.
International operations net sales revenue growth was 182% in the third quarters on a reported basis, and 144% on a pro forma basis. Excluding the impact of currency conversion, the net sales revenue was up by 51.5% on an FX neutral basis. Resident volume performance, timely pricing actions, and tight discount management resulted in this solid top-line growth. EBITDA, excluding the effect of other international operations, income and expense, grew by 125%. The EBITDA margin contracted by 569 basis points to 22.3% from an exceptional and high level of 27.9% last year due to high raw material inflation, increased energy costs, and dilutive impact of the Uzbekistan operation. Let me touch base on the key international markets.
Pakistan reached a record 372 million cases in the first nine months of the year. This included 5% year-on-year growth in the third quarter of the year, cycling 8% growth of a year ago. Zero sugar portfolio doubled in the volume in the third quarter of this year, coming from a low base. It has been a tough year for Pakistan so far. The country has endured double-digit inflation driven by increasing food and fuel prices. The rupee devalued by 35% on a year-to-date basis. On top of its historically heavy monsoons brought devastating rains, floods, and then, landslides. One-third of the country was submerged in the water at some point, displacing more than 33 million people.
While prioritizing the safety of our people, we ensured the continuity of our production and availability of our products during this difficult period in Pakistan. We supported our people, distributors, customers, and communities by various means as always. Kazakhstan grew by 8%, with positive contributions from traditional and modern channel and strong activity in the e-commerce channel. The sparkling category was strong in the third quarter, growing by 14%.
Uzbekistan continued to perform above our original expectations, growing by 40% on a year-on-year basis. This was the highest volume growth among our operations in the third quarter. Improving execution, expanding outlet reach, and the initiated restructuring of the route to market were the main reasons behind the successful growth of our Uzbekistan operation. Next page, please. Let me touch base on the new launches which are helping us to build our portfolio.
We operate a brand portfolio that includes some of the world's best-known brands. To stay relevant to our consumers in the future, we continuously expand our portfolio, entering into new categories, adding brand extensions, and introducing new packages. This is one of the main pillars of building a solid revenue growth management platform. Throughout the year, many brand extensions and seasonal flavors have been in the sparkling and still categories.
These were successfully added to our portfolio, contributing positively to our results. Here I want to emphasize two categories, energy drinks and coffee. The former was already in our portfolio but has accelerated this year with the new brand additions, gaining a meaningful scale . The latter is a brand new category for us. We initially entered the coffee category with Costa Coffee's Proud to Serve business in Turkey, selling coffee beans to on-premise customers.
The plan is to roll out this business in other countries and expand participation in coffee category in different formats. Energy is one category with high growth potential in all our countries. In Turkey, the expansion of the premium offerings with Monster Energy's portfolio, innovative flavors, and the new launched offerings in affordable energy segment with the Predator Energy complements stable sales of the established Burn energy brand in the mainstream segment. We plan to expand Predator brands to our international markets. In Pakistan, we also successfully relaunched Roar as a stimulant beverage. We were committed, and we are also committed to a robust innovation pipeline to stay relevant to changing consumption habits. Now I will leave the floor to Andriy for financial review. Thank you.
Thank you, Burak. Our consolidated net sales revenue was up by 156% in the quarter, while pro forma NSR growth was 135%. The main drivers of the NSR growth include resilient volume performance in international markets, timely price increases across the board, efficient revenue growth management initiatives, and tight promo management. Foreign currency conversion also contributed to the NSR growth. Net revenue increased 82% on an FX neutral basis. The FX neutral NSR per unit case growth was 69%. The gross margin contracted by 189 basis points to 33.8%, mainly due to raw materials inflation, increase in energy and transportation costs, and weaker local currencies. We were able to partially mitigate the cost pressures through timely price adjustments, better discount management, and well-structured hedging instruments throughout the year.
On an organic basis, margin contraction was 100 basis points. We continued managing OpEx with frugal mindset, achieving 59 basis points OpEx margin improvement year-on-year. As a result, the contraction in gross margin was partly mitigated and EBIT margin contraction was limited to 129 basis points on a reported basis and to 59 basis points on a pro forma basis. EBITDA grew by 131% to TRY 3.8 billion. The higher contraction of EBITDA margin against EBIT was due to the impact of inflation and TL devaluation on the nominal top line and EBIT growth, which was not matched by the increase in depreciation as the value of depreciable assets is not adjusted for inflation and currency movement.
EBITDA margin was realized at 21.7%, contracting 239 basis points from a year ago. Excluding the dilutive impact of Uzbekistan, the contraction was 151 basis points. We registered TRY 1.8 billion net income in third quarter 2022, thanks to higher trading profitability, partially offset by the increased financial expense. In an environment of Turkish lira depreciating more than 100% in the last twelve months, we are able to protect earnings per share in US dollar equivalent, which is important for real value generation. On to the next slide, please. Per unit case metrics are one of the main pillars of our value generation offering. We increased NSR per unit case by 69% on an FX neutral basis. Disciplined price increases and proactive revenue growth management help mitigating the high inflation in our geographies.
As mentioned, even in the markets with fierce price competition such as Iraq and Jordan, we chose different approach, prioritizing financially viable price realization over unsustainable volume growth and volume share gains. The NSR per unit case growth was also supported by improving package mix in Turkey and positive performance at the on-premise outlets across the board. However, the FX neutral costs per unit case increased by 72% ahead of NSR, mainly due to raw materials inflation, rising energy and transportation costs, and weaker local currencies. Therefore, FX neutral EBITDA per unit case growth was at 39% in the third quarter.
The increase in EBIT per unit case on FX neutral basis was above 50% as a result of the reverse inflationary impact on non-cash expenses, as I mentioned in the previous slide. We'll continue focusing on the sustainability of profitable growth and real EBITDA generation in the coming periods. On to the next slide, please. Reflecting overall strengths of our business and profitable operations across the market, EBIT increased by 140% in the third quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago and reached TRY 3.2 billion. Pricing was the main contributor to EBIT growth in the third quarter. It was also supported by positive momentum in the international volumes, better mix, especially in Turkey, and ongoing strengths on on-premise channels.
As I mentioned in the previous slide, high inflation, rising energy prices, and weaker local currencies have a negative impact on operating profitability. On to the next slide, please. We continued with disciplined financial management to maintain strong balance sheet and ample liquidity. Free cash generation enabled the leveraging of the balance sheet. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio is 0.7x, close to historically lowest level and significantly below the covenant. Our net short FX position, including the net investment hedge, narrowed approximately to $20 million. Excluding the net investment hedge, our net FX short position was around $400 million, or close to 1x annual EBITDA of our international operations, which we consider as a sustainable level.
Prudent financial management will continue to be a priority for us in the foreseeable future, considering the volatility in the financial markets and elevated cost of financing. However, with our recently extended average maturities and solid cash balances, we are very comfortable with our liquidity position. On to the next slide, please. Finally, let me give brief information on our commodity hedging positions for the remainder of this year and 2023. We expected supply chain disruptions and commodity cost inflation after the end of COVID pandemic. We were proactive in procurement, including long-term supplier relationships, effective use of hedges and pre-buy, and diversification of supplier pool, that have ensured uninterrupted raw material supply for business continuity and helped containing cost increases.
We leveraged our strength in crisis management and didn't face any supply chain disruption despite all the external shocks in 2022, including nationwide protests in Kazakhstan, Russia-Ukraine war, demand-led commodity cycle, COVID-related closures in China, and the recent flood emergency in Pakistan. We completed most of our sugar procurement in the first quarter and avoided the negative cost impact from extraordinary price movements in sugar, especially in Turkey. We developed alternative supply points and implemented new supply routes for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the rest of the Central Asia. For the coming year, we have secured 25% of sugar needs already at favorable costs and actively working on increasing the coverage.
As we saw a gradual decline in aluminum prices from historical highs, we increased our hedging position on aluminum above 70% for 2023 to lock in at favorable levels and ensure cost visibility and guarantee of supply. Considering high correlation of resin prices with petroleum and availability of supply, we didn't rush to add significant coverage and continued monitoring the markets for advantageous pricing levels to build further hedging positions. Now I will leave the stage to Burak for his closing remarks.
Well, thanks, Andriy. As you know, CCI operates in emerging and frontier markets with a lot of opportunities and challenges as well. We proved our resilience and built a solid track record despite facing macroeconomic and political fluctuations, currency shocks, and various external crises. We emerged stronger every time from these events, whether it's on a regional or global scale. We stay committed to the purpose of creating value in everything we do, leveraging our key strengths.
Great people unified with one team spirit capable of adapting to every situation. Excellent brand portfolio in our geographies with practically infinite opportunities for the foreseeable future. Prudent financial management leads to a strong balance sheet and liquidity. Digitally enabled and customer-centric business model leading to a more effective execution and higher productivity. Execution excellence and strong route to market capabilities to win at the marketplace.
Sound, ambitious, and measurable sustainability commitments towards 2030. We embrace the difficulties ahead, we are fully confident to navigate these challenges and committed to value creation for all of our stakeholders, including, but not limited to our shareholders, people, customers, consumers, and our communities. I also would like to congratulate our employees' sailing team for their championship in the Bosphorus Cup 2022. This trophy resulted from dedication, hard work, team spirit, and endless efforts.
They inspire us to be better sailors in the rough seas we operate. We are ready to take your questions. The floor is now open for your Q&A. Thank you very much. Operator, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now start the Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that is zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you for holding until we have the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Ismail Yücel from Ünlü Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you very much for the presentation. My question is about the gross margin performance in your Turkey and international locations. In Turkey locations, we have seen a improvement in your gross margin levels. If you also exclude the other expense income item, there's also an improvement in the EBITDA level, also EBITDA margin level. Could this be sustainable for the fourth quarter and the first quarter? As far as we can see, the ongoing price increases you have also delivered price increase above the third quarter as well. For Pakistan operations, could we also see a better pricing in dollar terms in the fourth quarter and some improvements in margin performance on a Q-on-Q basis for the fourth quarter? Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you for the questions. The first one is about Turkey performance and the gross margin. As you can see, in terms of the volume and pricing relationship, as we guided from the beginning of the year, the first quarter was more volume driven, and the first half was more volume driven. The second half is more price driven to compensate for the cost. That's why we managed to protect the margin in Turkey, and our degradation and contraction was limited to certain lower levels than it could be otherwise. There is also a limit to where we can go with pricing constantly. Therefore, we will continue to monitor, as we described before, the balance between our price realization and also volume growth.
We'll try to find that balance for Turkey also. We believe that the price increases we took are adequate to protect, and in the third quarter, as you know, we also took some pricing. These are adequate to enter the fourth quarter and going forward. Looking at the commodities that most likely passed its peak in the second quarter or so, first, second quarter of this year, there should not be any further significant impact on the margins going forward. This is in terms of Turkey and the overall business. In terms of Pakistan, obviously that's our ambition in terms of improving operations everywhere. But I don't think we disclose the Pakistan numbers specifically as a separate business, so I would withhold the comments.
As you can see, the growth of Pakistan is very significant, and we do focus both on volume and price improvements in Pakistan to make it a continuously more profitable business.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Hanzade Kılıçkıran from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thank you for the presentation. I wonder about your commodity cost inflation for next year. Is it possible to comment about the potential average unit cost increase next year based on your new contracts? I think you increased your contracts now. For the next year, do you think, I mean, Turkey has now turned into a negative momentum. Do you expect this to continue in the fourth quarter and also next year? Finally, you were guiding for flat to 100 basis contraction in EBITDA margin, but and you also mentioned that there is still some sort of downside risk. Do you still maintain this view? I mean, do you still see some sort of downside risk to your guidance? Thank you.
In terms of the commodity inflation, going forward, while we do believe that commodities as a market may have passed the peak, as you know, we booked commodities, and we explained it in previous calls, in our first quarter, first half this year, we had commodities in our financials, and they were significantly below the market because we booked them well in advance at much lower prices. What you see in the third quarter and what you will see in the fourth quarter is more sort of normalized prices of commodities in our financials.
Therefore, in the first half of next year, there will be some residual pressure in terms of the commodities, in terms of comparative days of the last year or sorry, of this year, compared with when we compared in 2023, because again, while the prices will be most likely somewhere around the current level, our base in 2022 first half was significantly lower. That's what I can say about the commodity prices going forward. We do believe that we will continue to watch the commodities very closely and, whenever it is possible and necessary, to mitigate the impact with the price adjustments, we will continue to be very diligent to protect the margins, without depressing the volume growth. That's on commodities in 2023.
In terms of Turkey, obviously in Turkey there is some hesitation from consumers, taking into account that everything became a lot more expensive. That has an impact on everyone including us, on all consumer goods companies. In terms of specifically growth momentum going forward, I just wanna make sure that we take into account a few factors. The third quarter of 2021 was historically a record quarter for CCI, and we were facing really high comps in this quarter in Turkey. The second important point is that this is when we faced the commodities at the significantly elevated prices, and we continued to take significant price increases that had impact on the consumer and on the consumption in this specific quarter.
Going forward, while the volatility remains and uncertainty remains in Turkish market, we do believe that there will be a better performance going forward, as in Turkey we may pass the most difficult part, while unless there is another commodity price spike that we will have to manage, but we don't believe that this is the situation for Turkey at this time. In terms of the guidance, I think I just want to reiterate what Burak mentioned in the opening that we see for this year the margin be at the lower end of our guidance in terms of contraction of 1% to potentially slightly higher than the 1% contraction. That's as much as I think we can predict at this point in time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have no other questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you, if you do have any further questions, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Cemal Demirtaş from Ata Invest. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Thank you for the presentation. My first question is about the pricing side. We, as you mentioned, we feel the price increases in all fronts. Do you have any comparison with other markets concerning the purchasing power? How do the prices in Turkey look like compared to other markets? If you have any, you know, anecdotal evidence or numbers on that. The other question is about the inflation accounting. Now it's one of the hot issues, and currently high growth numbers are here. There's a question about the real profitability of the companies in Turkey as we had experienced back in early 1998 years. Do you have any study on that? What should it be, if you know, implement inflation accounting?
What's your real ROE in the business? Could you give us any indication about, you know, the real profitable growth of the company in your case? Thank you.
Okay. In terms of the prices in Turkey against other markets, as part of the Coca-Cola system, we have information in terms of benchmarking in terms of the pricing. In terms of within the context of purchasing power parity, obviously, and real incomes in the countries. Based on information within the system, we can see that Turkey, despite of all the price increases that we took, is still slightly behind sort of the median pricing in other markets. We do have some headroom on a comparative basis to continue with the pricing. Obviously, what's important is that it's not a one-time activity, and psychological interest and so on is very important.
We are on a path of gradually adjusting those levels. Obviously, as you can understand that with the commodity inflation, our peers also took very significant pricing action across the world and this year. Therefore, the benchmarks will be also shifting. From that perspective, we are fairly confident that we are on the right track, and we are not overshooting with the pricing in Turkey. In terms of inflation accounting, yes, inflation is running high in Turkey. We are reporting to the public company in regulated environment from reporting perspective. If the inflation accounting were adopted and stipulated for us, we would do it, and we are fully prepared to report if necessary.
That's the regulator's determination if that reporting is necessary or not on a full comprehensive basis, for the financial statement. Now, in terms of the more readable income, I'm sure, and profit and loss and so on, I'm sure you are doing the sort of, your own assessments of how we're doing in, more stable currencies like in U.S. dollar equivalent or euro equivalent and so on. We do the same internally, and we are watching those metrics, very carefully. Therefore, I think during the presentation today, you heard a couple of references, to those metrics. We are very much focused on how we're doing in a sort of a more stable measurement unit, in terms of our results.
Thank you.
Thank you. As we have no more questions registered, I now hand back to our speakers for any closing comments.
Well, I would like to thank everybody for joining our call and your interest in our company and for your questions as well. I hope we were able to answer your questions and clarify our performance going forward. Thank you for that. I also would like to thank each and every one of our employees who are making these numbers reality. We're confident that we're gonna be able to deliver our guidance. We've started looking into next year's with a bit more optimistic view. I would like to thank you each and every one of you for your participation and wish you a great and happy and healthy days. Thank you very much.