Coca-Cola at DbAccess Conference: Strategic Growth Insights

On Wednesday, 04 June 2025, Coca-Cola HBC (NYSE:KO) presented at the DbAccess 22nd Global Consumer Conference. Led by CEO Zoran Bogdanovic, the company shared a robust Q1 performance with a 10.6% organic revenue growth. Despite market challenges, Coca-Cola HBC maintained its full-year guidance, emphasizing strategic priorities and digital transformation. However, the company acknowledged potential risks from consumer sentiment and inflation.

Key Takeaways

• Coca-Cola HBC reported a strong start to the year with 10.6% organic revenue growth.
• Full-year guidance reaffirmed: 6-8% organic revenue growth and 7-11% EBIT growth.
• Focus on digital transformation and strategic acquisitions to enhance competitive position.
• Emphasis on sustainability, ranking in the top three globally by Dow Jones Sustainability Indices.
• Continued investment in talent development and data-driven insights for personalized execution.

Financial Results

• Q1 2024 organic revenue growth: 10.6%
• Q1 2024 volume growth: 1.8%
• Full-year 2024 organic revenue growth guidance: 6-8%
• Full-year 2024 EBIT organic growth guidance: 7-11%
• Medium-term organic revenue growth target: 6-7% per year
• Medium-term EBIT margin improvement target: 20-40 basis points per year

Operational Updates

• Focus on "24/7 portfolio" to cater to all drinking occasions.
• Key capabilities include revenue growth management, data insights & AI, d-commerce, and customer management.
• Investment in digital and technology, with 80% of appointments being internal promotions.
• Strong growth in energy drinks category, with Monster reaching 8% of revenue in Q1.
• Emphasis on sustainability and consistent high ranking by Dow Jones Sustainability Indices.

Future Outlook

• Expects volume to be positive in the low single digits for the year.
• Price/mix contribution to revenue growth will soften compared to previous years.
• Confident in achieving full-year guidance, acknowledging potential risks from consumer sentiment, inflation, and weather conditions.
• Exploring opportunities to deploy cash, including potential acquisitions within the Coca-Cola system and bolt-on acquisitions of other brands.
• Potential for a special dividend if no suitable investment opportunities arise.

Q&A Highlights

• Italy: Growth focus on food occasions and strong performance of Zero Sugar portfolio.
• Nigeria: Leveraging data insights to navigate market volatility with dynamic pricing strategies.
• Egypt: Overcoming challenges with portfolio expansion and long-term growth confidence.
• Energy: Strong growth driven by innovation and effective execution, with a partnership with Chelsea Football Club.
• Coffee: Focusing on out-of-home and at-work channels for Costa, with a premium segment focus.

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For further details, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - DbAccess 22nd Global Consumer Conference:

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Morning, everyone. Thank you for joining this session. Before the conversation, I'll just say a few remarks for those whom maybe don't know about Coca Cola HBC. We are one of the largest global strategic bottling partners of the Coca Cola company with presence in a diverse set of markets across 29 markets in Europe and Africa. And we see that as one of the interesting characteristics having a a wide span of countries all the way from well established of Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, all the way to emerging markets of Nigeria, Egypt, and some of those in Europe.

We are a growth focused company with a proven track record of delivering results. And, the key strategies to help us achieve our vision of the leading, twenty four seven beverage partner are are simple ones. First of all, it is our, what we believe, unique, twenty four seven portfolio, which we call twenty four seven portfolio brands because it has all the offerings that consumers need in a drinking moment and occasions all the way from the morning where possibly it's with coffee, all the way till the morning again where maybe it's the mixability between some combination of our non alcohol portfolio with with premium spirits. So that's why we call it twenty four seven as it caters through all the moments throughout the day. The potential of this excellent portfolio, it gets converted into profitable revenue growth only with the strong bespoke capabilities that we have been building consistently over the years and that, we believe truly helped us, in some of the tough times in the last years as well as in some of the easier times.

By that, I mean revenue growth management, road to market. In the last five, six years, it's data insights and artificial intelligence, d commerce, customer management, and and talent development. This is this is all underpinned with our continuous investments and improvements in competitiveness and and investments behind digital and technology. Also, our strong com investments behind people. I'm very proud that consistently our strategy of building within primarily is is seen in continuous talent appointments across our countries where 80% of our people are grown from within.

And lastly, sustainability is deeply embedded as the as the last pillar of our five strategy five pillar strategy. Stability deeply embedded where we are very proud that in the last thirteen years, we've been consistently ranked in the top three places globally by Dow Jones based in class index and as well as other ones. And eight times out of that, we've been the global beverage leader, including including last year. I'll just remind that when we had Capital Markets Day in 2023, we updated our guidance to step up the corridor of the top line growth to be six to 7% of organic revenue growth in average per year as well as 20 to 40 basis points EBIT margin improvement on average per year. With that in mind, I'm just to close the loop to say that q one started well in line with our expectations where we reported growth of 10.6% and with volume of 1.8, which is very important for our algorithm.

And we have provided guidance specifically for this year to be six to 8% corridor and seven to eight seven to 11% EBIT organic growth. With that, I'll shut up for a moment and hand over to Nick.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Thank you, Zoran. I'm glad you you finished on on q one in the guidance because that's a good place for us to start. So as you said, you did 10.6% organic sales growth with 1.8% volume growth, but there were some headwinds in q one, calendar effects, Easter. And I guess, therefore, the guidance for the full year of six to 8% feels reasonably conservative. How should we think about the phasing of revenue growth for the balance of the year, therefore?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Look. You know the q one, this is well known story. It's the it's the smallest quarter. There is still long nine months or eight months to go. We are pleased that it started in line with expectations.

We know that we are living in a little bit of a awkward world where lots of things can happen, and therefore, we simply respect the fact that key trading season is only ahead of us. We do see in some parts, some con more consumer sensitivity to pricing and sentiment, which proves to be still below 2021. So that's why we provide range given that we really have to see how things how things pan out. But we feel confident with what we guided for, and we think that's the the best and most fair assessment that we have at the moment. K.

Understood. And how should we

Mitch Collett, Analyst: think about the contributions of price versus mix versus volume this year?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Yeah. You're right. Look. We know that we are coming out of the higher inflationary period where inevitably price mix play the pivotal role. And our revenue growth management was a phenomenal tool to navigate us through all of that and to achieve very high levels of price mix and yet not to lose grip on volume.

It is clear that price mix is going to soften. And you will see that this year that gradually, it is it is coming it's it is coming down. As we are also cycling out all the effects of the price increases, which were stronger last year, then price increases or rather price adjustments that we have done so far this year, which are much much smaller. So, ideally, when we think about overall midterm guidance, ideally, we would say that price mix and volume would be somewhere in the more balanced, ratio between each other, of course, depending on country to country. But this year this year, it's going to be lower than it has been over the last few years.

And, however, this year still, pricemix is going to be bigger part of the revenue generation. With that in mind, I reiterate what what we said on the call is that we do expect that volume we will be volume positive, and it will be somewhere in the low single digits.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: K. Understood. May maybe moving on to EBIT. So you've guided to seven to 11% organic growth this year. You just mentioned that the sort of key season is to come.

What are the the puts and takes that would get you to the the the top or the bottom end of that range?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Well, I think what I alluded to is that if we see that the whole consumer situation deteriorates or that we see some comeback of inflation driven by whatever other whatever factors, if sentiment would not, stabilize or improve, and if we would see any effects, unexpected things, that would drag us to the lower to the lower end. However, if we see that things start improving and that we see that key trading season of summer is going to work work well, We don't expect or, let's say, wish that it has to be crazy good summer, but we've seen in several last years that sometimes certain months can be extremely impacted by also weather conditions, which is worrying on on a whole climate front. However, you know, if that works well, we see ourselves in the in the upper end. So that's why we assessed that that's the corridor where we see playing and doing our best and push hard.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Okay. Understood. And and are you seeing any changes in the consumer environment across your your key geographies? Has anything really changed since the end of q one?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Nothing nothing dramatically. Everything seemed to be fairly stable and quite consistent versus last year. We can't say that something really significantly changed. But having having said that, already last year, we've seen that consumer sentiment, as I said, is still below 21. We do see price sensitivity in a number of markets.

That's why already last year and as well creation of the plan for this year includes lots of initiatives that are supporting affordability needs of the consumers. And we do that across all the markets in a very unique bespoke way for every single market, leveraging revenue growth management and and concrete circumstances in every single in every single market.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Yeah. Okay. Understood. Maybe thinking a bit longer term, so you you mentioned the medium term guidance of six to 7% organic sales growth. You you've also said in the past that the three divisions you operate in have very different roles to play within that six to 7%.

So different levels of economic development, different levels of per capita consumption. Can you just remind us what what you expect each of your three divisions to deliver and contribute to that group performance?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Look. We said that all three all three segments will contribute, and we expect all three segments to to grow. We didn't provide guidance by segment as we don't do that. But as we've seen over the last few years, the strongest growth came from emerging, followed by developing, and then, established. So I think that kind of a pattern needs to be expected, how we think about it.

But all three segments clearly, have their own opportunities, and none of them is is excused from, delivering delivering growth.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Okay. And it looks like there's a reasonable chance 2025 is is the third consecutive year of of you being above that range. I know you haven't said that yet. But is that still the right range? It was a couple of years since the Capital Markets Day, but if you keep over delivering, is that the right number to put out there?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Yep. We believe it is as we've done a thorough exercise of evaluating the underlying industry growth and everything that we have, and that's why we stepped up that corridor. Now it's we need to recognize that results of last three years have been impacted by this high inflationary environment where it was necessity to price, not only for us, but for for everyone else. Simply, we we have to protect the health of the business for the short term, but also for the long term. So our guidance midterm guidance has assumed more normalized conditions.

And as we have been last three years at the top of the or among the top performers in our industry, we also believe that with six to 7%, that will put us also among the top performers in the industry as also continuously gaining share is one of the drivers why we believe that six to 7% is the is the is the right corridor. Now if we would see that ever that market itself is developing better and stronger, of course, that we would we would revisit because at at the back of everything is that we have winning ambition in the market. And I think with capabilities and portfolio and people we have, we need to aspire to be at the at the winning front.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: K. Understood. Maybe we'll dive into a couple markets. So in Italy, you're trying to grow, I think, with the food occasion. So can you talk about what you're doing to to grow with food in Italy?

And then, you know, maybe on top of that, can you talk about what you're planning to do to grow zeros, adult, and and energy?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: How not to grow in Italy if not with lunch or food occasion? Joking aside, our data insights analytics together with the revenue growth management now really give us visibility of various occasions and segmentation of of of consumption where we see what are the biggest occasions. So everywhere, but particularly in Italy, Coke with food is super important revenue pool. We are traditionally stronger in the dinner occasion, and that's why specifically we are putting now more emphasis on on the lunch occasion. And lunch occasion primarily means combination with pizza is the is the is the legendary food item in in Italy, but it really works extremely well.

We see that last couple of years of consistent focus behind this in a creative, smart way of communication, activation, partnership with customers, it does deliver, results. We see that also in the movement of the per capita, which is, very important in, in Italy. So that's one part which is, really one of the key drivers of the sparkling performance, in Italy. As you said, Mitch, then it's the Zero Sugar portfolio that's doing very well in Italy. Now with addition of also the Zero Sugar, Zero Caffeine, which is performing very well in Italy.

We had also excellent performance of adults, namely Kinley and Lauritzia. Yeah. So all that is important for the sparkling. But one additional element I would highlight in Italy is that, let's say, ten years ago, we were pretty much dual category business with sparkling, with water. In the meantime, we took over leadership, with Monster in the energy segment.

We took over and strengthened leadership, with Powerade in the sports category. We developed quite solid position with Fuze in the ready to drink. And all that was also enabled by very strong investments that we are doing behind out of home in Italy, which we see as a strategically important channel, and that's why we've been putting additional resources and focus behind that.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Thank you. Let's go to Nigeria. So it's always been a a market with some volatility, but but clearly huge growth potential longer term. I know you've managed some of that volatility with dynamic pricing. I guess, how are you sort of navigating back to a more sort of volume driven strategy within Nigeria?

And, I guess, what what were the learnings as you implemented that that dynamic pricing strategy?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Yeah. If anywhere revenue growth management is is important, then it's it's Nigeria and and such emerging markets, Egypt as well. That's why it's it's not surprise, and we we clearly say that whenever we are launching new capabilities, when it was revenue growth management well, not launching new, but stepping it up with the way that we started 02/2017, nay Nigeria was number one. Data insights analytics, Nigeria was, again, number one. Because in such a diverse, complex, and challenging market, the capabilities are what really helps you to sail through in all kinds of variety of situations.

So segmented execution and knowing types of consumers, their segments, what are the outlets where they shop, all that is informing the way we are approaching, dynamic pricing because it's not the same what we do in North Of Nigeria, what we do in the in Lagos or in in Delta. Very different by category because, sensitivity price sensitivity consumers by category is very different. Water versus sparkling versus energy, it's not one size fits all. We now know and have the visibility, what that means. Also, various, packages in Nigeria where affordability is super important.

Returnable glass bottle is the pivotal pack, how we are catering to Nigerians who really need affordable Coca Cola Fanta Sprite or whatever. So we've been we've been leveraging that package, for example, for that. On the other side, there is also premiumization because when you see the top of the population pyramid, you have 15,000,000 people that are considered really as affluent. That's almost almost size of Romania. But now with the ability that we have together with Coca Cola Company of segmenting consumers and customers, that really is helping us to navigate and plan our activities in a very personalized way for neighborhoods or even in the same street for different types of outlets.

Now lastly, what you said last few years where it's a high inflation Nigeria, we had devaluation. All that has to drive price mix. And, of course, to some extent, that does does have impact on the volumes. If the objective would be to grow volume, we could easily do that at the expense of protecting real healthiness of the of the business. That's why we believe strongly that it's in the balance.

It has to be both. And I'm very pleased that with very high price mix that we've done in Nigeria, we have consistently achieved also volume growth. And I'm I'm very, very pleased for that. And and I see that, you know, the start of the year trading so far in in Nigeria has been in line with expectations and good.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Okay. I feel you might have just answered my next question, but just are you are you confident you didn't take too much price? I know you needed to take a lot of price because of those inflationary pressures, but, I guess, what do your revenue growth management tools tell you about, you know, where you are on pricing in Nigeria?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Look. We we we have to think about business responsibly. And in in impact we had from FX, it's a real inflation, which is really double digit inflation. We see that in the cost increases. So simply, we cannot absorb that.

But then when we have to pass it on, now I'm confident that we have the the capability that allows us to do that, in a way that better suits customers, and consumers so that business can continue growing. So in hindsight, I think we would have done exactly the same what we have done.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Okay. Understood. Thank you. Another market that has had some volatility is is Egypt. Some.

Some. Sorry. Yeah. I'm understating it. But, yeah, what what what are you seeing in Egypt right now, and and, you know, has there been has has the boycott of the Western brand started to ease?

How are the consumers faring given inflationary pressures?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Yeah. Look. Maybe just a word on the on on the fact that Egypt as a franchise is the recent addition. And when we did acquisition case, we had thought and we knew that at some point, the devaluation has to come. Inflation you know, it's it's a emerging market.

However, the fact that many things came together condensed during high inflation, there was twice a big devaluation. Food pricing was even higher than than regular inflation, then boycott. So many things came together, which on one side was challenge. On the other side, honestly, it was also opportunity, and we have to take it like this. It's a real case for change.

So it enabled us to do a number of things that, honestly, originally, planned over a longer period. We condensed those actions and a number of changes and step step ups that we had to do. So even last year when, we were impacted, let's say, by by boy boycott primarily on the Coca Cola brand as well as other leading international brands, that that were impacted. But we've seen under the hood lots of good things happening as we see, development of the capabilities, upscaling the, people, introducing more coolers. So I'm very pleased with the speed and development that we see, in Egypt, and I believe as situation will, will stabilize, I think that we will come out of this situation stronger, and more ready than maybe originally we would be at this point of time if I just think that sense of crisis and urgency brought more attention, focus, and speed.

And I'm I'm extremely pleased to see our share gains that we are achieving in the country. Weekly plus consumers continues growth, and that this well phased portfolio expansion, as we also added the monster in the and and Fury in the country, in the energy category, has been proven very well because these other parts of the portfolio, rewiring of water play in the country, great performance, strong performance of adults, meaning Schweppes, which is, by the way, largest business of Schweppes globally in in Egypt. All that helped us to navigate through all this in, I think, in a in a good way. And we are patient and confident that this country, which we entered for the long run, is going to be a very good growth and value driver for Helene.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: K. Maybe a sort of broader question. You seem to navigate this type of volatility much better than many other consumer staples companies. So I'm just really interested in in, you know, what is the secret sauce? Is it because you're, you know, used to operating in those markets?

Is it your, you know, your your digital tools? Is it your people? Is it the brands you sell? Is it incentivization? What how do you manage to sort of have these challenges and and always seem to come out, you know, delivering a very good performance?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Yeah. Mitch, from bottom of my heart, I truly believe it starts with people. Having the right people in the right roles who have a growth mindset even in the most difficult moments plays a tremendous role. And then it was also, you know, people and team who, years back, decided that these are the capabilities that we will be very disciplined in how we develop them and that we are not going to drift it every year or every two years. Well, let's do this.

Let's do that. We've been very consistent how much we invest in the resources in the, of course, digital and technology tools to support all of that. So you can have all these platforms and build them, buy them. You can buy all the lines, but people element makes it all makes it all happen. I'm very I'm very pleased that we took lots of learnings from COVID.

That period, as much as it was unfortunate for all of us as as human beings to go through, but it offered and revealed that it's we can operate suddenly and fast in a very different circumstances. We can prioritize very differently. So if if we do one thing, we only remind ourselves in these kind of normal times when we wanna do too many or how it also was when we were in in in those days. So constant self push on prioritization and sequencing of the initiatives that that we want to do. Not easy because our culture is that we wanna do lots of things, and we wanna do them right away.

But very honestly, that's something that we are learning how to prioritize and pace so that everything we do in a given moment is is with the right impact. And it's it's ongoing process. But so far, it proved that in some of the very difficult moments, and we didn't like them, unfortunately. I think the team has proven that we can really navigate through that.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Got it. Maybe let's talk about a couple of categories, and I like the way you described it as sort of twenty four seven portfolio. One of the standout performers has been energy. I think you've had nine consecutive years of of very strong growth with your energy business. Can you talk a bit more about that category, you know, what innovations you're doing, and, ultimately, you know, why does energy remain so strong?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: We yeah. We are very, very happy with a very constructive partnership that we have in Monster Team and belief that we have in the in the category that has its functionality match with what consumers need. It is clearly that consumers need an uplift in in in energy and to go through the day. And it's visible that cohorts are expanding. The average the average age of energy consumer is around 34 years of age, which is contrary to sometimes believe that these are usually, younger consumers.

They were, but it is the consumer brackets are expanding. There are many elements that underpin this excellent innovation that comes from Monster every year. There is something new. And and it's done so well and so relevant where big number of innovations really work, and they are key contributor to incremental growth. Now we had the Rio Punch and Ultra Strawberry.

Last year, finally, zero sugar of the green monster, which is like Coca Cola in sparkling. That's very important key flavor. Reformulations, zero sugar to not to miss that. Then a number of assets and properties that really impact consumers, whether it's now Chelsea partnership with Chelsea that we activate so well in Nigeria and and Egypt. There are more fans in Nigeria for for Chelsea than in UK.

So now having that property does play a role. People are passionate. And if a brand is touching their passion and try it gives them a chance to be part of some kind of a dream, maybe win a jersey, maybe go see the game, It it matters. But it doesn't start with that. It has to start with the product quality, product innovation, and product proposition.

Our own execution, which constantly expanding distribution, adding more and more coolers. So I think that a number of elements in the whole in the whole wheel are working very well. And I can say with confidence that this year is going to be another year of double digit growth with with energy. And now it reached already 8% of our revenue in q one, And I think that it's a matter of couple of years that it's going to become a double digit part of our revenue, which is amazing. I mean, just, I don't know, sixteen, seventeen years whenever we started from zero to now close to 10%.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Yep. It's impressive. Maybe we should move to coffee, another part of your twenty four seven portfolio. I think you said at the q one stage that you were refocusing a bit on the the out of home consumption for coffee. Why was there that need to refocus, and and what is the opportunity you see for your coffee portfolio?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: I think I think it's it's important, Mitch, to emphasize why coffee. Coffee in the whole beverage space and specifically in the nonalcohol, let's say, space is a is a huge category. It's a big profitable revenue pool. And for that reason, you see a number of many players in coffee. Now for a company like like ours that aspires to be the leading twenty four seven beverage partner, coffee is an important part in the day in the in the lives of consumers, not only in the morning, but throughout the day.

And there are people in the room who who like to drink their espresso even in the evening. So so so for us to be credible partner to customers and cater everything that they really need for their shoppers and and and and their customers. You have to have this important category. Plus, coffee is one of the very important profit generators for the bars, restaurants, outlets. When you take the analysis and understand how much money they make from each of the categories, you understand the importance of the coffee.

So we said that we will focus on coffee, and it's going to be a marathon. It's not about sprint. We have to build our own right to win. We started from scratch of employing people, creating teams. We clearly front loaded the resources and investments, and we continue learning.

Now all this has happened also in the times when last several years, green coffee pricing has been in unusually long period. It stayed on a high level. It's quite cyclical, but now it stayed on a on a high level, which is impacting all players. I think you could hear that from a number of calls that that they have. However, that does not diminish our belief in the in the category, but to to do it in a way that also makes more sense for the economic value creation.

That's why together with Costa, because it was with Costa that we were present also in the at home channel, we we saw that the value chains there for the time being are really not where we would really like them to be. So that's why we said until circumstances possibly change that we are going to rewire our focus behind out of home at work. So in the space of the market where we see that there is more value and that, you know, that level of price intensity and competitiveness that you see in the at home channel is is different. And also our competitive advantage, I believe, with our approach to auto home is something that we can really leverage. So it came through our own analysis quite logical that we we we rewire, and we have been fully aligned with Costa team, on that.

Now I don't mention Cafe Bergnano, which is an important other, brand, because we, from the beginning, focused, with Cafe Bergnano already on out of home and on more premium segment of customers as that coffee clearly plays in a more premium segment than than Costa. So with the multi brand strategy, now with the already quite developed capability, I'm I'm very pleased with the with the progress knowing that this is something that I like to remind people. Like I said, with Monster, when we started some fifteen, sixteen years ago, we started from zero, and you see where we are today. That's why the question with coffee is that we are it's important to have in mind where we wanna be in in, again, ten, fifteen years. It takes time, patience, but it's a great category, and very important for the DNA, of the company like we are and and and our ambitions that we have, in the market.

We had in q one '19 percent growth in the out of home, channel, which is, within same outlets, but also because we are every quarter expanding number of of outlets that we are serving with with coffee.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: Thank you. I'm conscious. We're getting short on time, but you've mentioned a few times DIA, digital insights and analytics. I know you did a bite sized webinar on that last year, and you also appeared in our artificial intelligence panel yesterday. But maybe if there are people in this audience who who who didn't watch the webinar, who who weren't at the the AI conversation yesterday, How do you think about your DIA tools?

Do you have any specific examples of where you've used them, and to what extent do you view it as a competitive advantage?

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Look. We we started with this. I we had some start before COVID, clearly. However, I would say that the real start of this was, right, I remember so well, June of twenty twenty. And ever since, we created now around 60 people in the company and that have been taking this forward in partnership with other functions because this team is nothing in isolation.

They have to work through the through the arms of the functions, starting with commercial where their impact has to be seen. So invested in the team and resources, that comes also with a lot of technology, digital, and platform investments. We've just finished one pitch stop of how we go into the next phase where we are, recognizing and embedding even more artificial intelligence. That's why now we we call it, data insights and AI. And we've been focused behind a number of prioritized use cases.

Like I mentioned yesterday, segmented execution has been the foundational case. We are already now with version three across all markets because this really helps us to enable personalized execution and approach to every single outlet, which we treat as a segment, as a unique as a unique segment. When you have that done well, that from that base, we can then do other parts, which is promo effectiveness both in the organized and modern and fragmented trade forecasting use case, needless to say how much that's important for the whole planning, inventory management, and out of stock. And last one is the retention of our business developer sales salespeople because we identify that as one important case where data insights analytics really help us to connect the dots from such a pool of data, which is also helping us in the in giving us insights for the retention of of people. Those were the starting ones, but we are continuing with deployment.

And it's like a positive virus, I would say, that it's more and more scaled in the in the business. And now we are using so many tools in the warehouse, in on the customer front, artificial in intelligence enabled marketing, you know, digital platforms, the way we do, you know, insights on pricing, analysis, scanning of the market of all the outlet potential and pool, not only those that we are visiting chatbots. So I could name you a number of tools that really fit in each of our priorities and capabilities.

Mitch Collett, Analyst: K. We are out of time, so I'll make this the last question. And I haven't asked about cash. So you've done buybacks, but your balance sheet is is still strong. Net debt to EBITDA is below one times.

How do you think about your opportunity to deploy cash going forward? Do you think there's scope to become bigger within the Coke system? I know you've done acquisitions of your own brands. How should we think about how you're gonna use cash

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: going forward? So as you said, we finished with the ratio one, and we do have a strong balance sheet, and we would we would love to put it to use, meaning that we see the the opportunity that we can scale more our capabilities, talent potential. So if opportunities arise within Coke system, it would be our natural and most desired way of doing more. I think it's fair to say, like, you see other bottlers as well. In our business, that would be the best click of doing more or what we, I think, know to do well.

So but you know as well that that starts with conversation with Coca Cola Company. And if and when things arise, we just say that we are raising hand to be considered. Beyond that, yes, we are always on the lookout to see what bolt on potentially could could fit. And while we are looking, we are not rushing that it would be anything. It has to be good fit.

It has to fit into some white spaces we have. It has to be of a a clear strategic proposition. It has to have a good economics. So I hope that in such spaces, there will be some opportunities ahead of us. In the absence of that, you know that in what we've done few times already in the last number of years is that, yeah, there could be special dividend.

But I think for all these things, it's a bit too early to to make conclusions, but options are there. Okay. Understood. That's a good

Mitch Collett, Analyst: place to leave it. So, Zoran, thank you very much. Appreciate your time and your perspectives. Thank you.

Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO, Coca-Cola HBC: Thank you very much.

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