Price hikes lead to a big quarter

The cost of drinking sugary (and non-sugary) products from Coca-Cola (KO) is on a steep rise, helping to pad the beverage giant’s sales and profits.

Coca-Cola blew away analyst sales and profit forecasts on Monday, and inflation-related price hikes globally were at the core of the much better than expected results. Coke said its price/mix metric — a key measure of price increases on products — rose a healthy 7% in the first quarter.

Some of the pricing gains were more eye-popping by segment.

“Price/mix grew 11%, primarily driven by pricing actions in the marketplace, continued recovery in the fountain business and away-from-home channels, and strong growth in premium offerings,” Coke said in explaining the performance of its North America business, where operating profits in the business surged 33% from a year ago. “Price/mix growth included a benefit resulting from the timing of price increases in the prior year.”

Elsewhere, price/mix spiked 19% in Latin America and by 6% each in the Asia Pacific and European segments.

Despite the price increases, Coke’s unit case volume rose in all geographical reasons.

Here is how Coca-Cola performed compared to Wall Street estimates:

Shares of Coca-Cola rose slightly in pre-market trading.

The company reiterated its full-year organic sales growth of 7% to 8%. Earnings are still expected to rise 5% to 6%.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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