2024-12-03 James Quincey.Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference (Transcript)

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference December 3, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

James Quincey - Chairman & CEO

Conference Call Participants

Dara Mohsenian - Morgan Stanley

Dara Mohsenian

Good morning, everyone. I'm Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley's Beverage and Household Products Analyst. I'm very pleased to welcome Coca-Cola to our conference. Just before we get started, I do have to note some important disclosures. Please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosures website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, you can reach out to your Morgan Stanley representative.

With that, joining us today from Coca-Cola, we have Chairman and CEO, James Quincey. James, it's great to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us.

大家早上好。我是 Dara Mohsenian，摩根士丹利饮料和家庭用品分析师。非常高兴欢迎可口可乐来到我们的会议。在我们开始之前，我必须提到一些重要的披露事项。请访问摩根士丹利研究披露网站：www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures。如果您有任何问题，可以联系您的摩根士丹利代表。

在此，我们今天邀请到可口可乐的董事长兼首席执行官 James Quincey。James，非常高兴今天能与您一起交流。非常感谢您参加我们的会议。

James Quincey

You're welcome.

不客气。

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - Dara Mohsenian

So previously you've discussed your all-weather strategy that served you well for the volatility of the last few years. You've talked about performing at the high-end of the long-term top-line algorithm of 4% to 6% organic sales growth. Given we're sort of moving to a more normalized level of category growth across CPG, as pricing has decelerated, just level set us for what we should expect going forward. Is the high-end still in sight, as you look out over the next couple of years in this environment, particularly if we're in a period of lower pricing in CPG in general?

此前，您讨论过您的“全天候”战略，这个战略在过去几年应对波动性时表现非常好。您提到过在长期营收增长算法的 4% 到 6% 之间的高端表现。鉴于我们现在正进入一个更为规范的消费品类增长水平，而定价增速放缓，请您为我们设定一个预期。随着定价在消费品行业普遍放缓，未来几年我们应该如何预期？如果我们正处于消费品行业整体价格较低的时期，高端目标是否仍可达成？

James Quincey

Yes. Look, I still feel very good about being at the top end of the 4% to 6% i.e. in the 5% to 6% range. I think yes, it's true that pricing or consumer inflation in general and pricing is going to moderate, but it's going to moderate back down to the sort of levels it was at before. And so, let's remember that, pre this whole 5-year journey on COVID and the waxing and waning of the economy, that's where we were before. I mean in 2017, 2018, 2019 we were in that top-end of the range as well and it was coming from a balance of volume and price.

是的。看看，我对能保持在 4% 到 6% 范围的高端，即 5% 到 6% 范围，仍然感到非常有信心。我认为，虽然定价或消费者通胀普遍会放缓，但它将回到以前的水平。所以，让我们记住，在整个 COVID 和经济波动的五年周期之前，我们的表现就处于这个水平。2017 年、2018 年和 2019 年我们也处于这个范围的高端，且这一增长是由销量和价格的平衡驱动的。

So I fully expect to see both volume and price contributing to getting us in a balanced way to the top end of the algorithm. In a way it's just a return to where we were, before because it's ultimately underpinned by an industry, the beverage industry which still has huge growth potential in front of it. At the end of day, the world is characterized by more people not consuming commercial beverages than paying for commercial beverages.

因此，我完全预计到无论是销量还是价格都会共同发挥作用，以一种平衡的方式将我们推向算法的高端。从某种意义上说，这只是回到我们先前的状态，因为最终这一切都是由饮料行业所支撑，而该行业仍有巨大的增长潜力。归根结底，这个世界的特征在于，不消费商业饮料的人数多于为商业饮料付费的人数。

The industry has got a long way left to grow. We're the market leader and if you do a histogram of growth rates for the industry going back 30 or 40 years, the median growth rate is 4%. If you've got an industry supported by its leader that continues to grow, and we gain share, you get into the kind of the 5% to 6% bullocks. So I think whichever way you cut it, you come back to a relatively high level of confidence that we should stay there.

这一行业还有很大的成长空间。我们是市场领导者，如果你绘制过去 30 或 40 年行业的增长率直方图，中位数增长率是 4%。如果一个行业由其领导者支持并持续增长，而我们又在不断扩大市场份额，那么就能达到 5% 到 6% 的增长区间。所以，我认为不管从哪个角度来看，我们都能保持相对较高的信心，认为我们应该能够保持这个水平。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. Maybe let's break that down a little bit. I know you won't want to be too specific, but if we could break it down between volume, pricing and mix. Volume you've been pretty consistently in that plus 1% to 2% range in recent years, a little bit softer last quarter due to some dynamics.

But as you look at the volume side, do you expect improvement as pricing comes off, or is it more you haven't seen a lot of elasticity and to meet those goals you're probably in a similar type of range and really same questions on pricing and mix. Pricing, you have shown you have a lot of pricing power in the last few years. Does that embolden you to be a little more aggressive with pricing, or do you have to be a little more constrained in this consumer environment?

And I'm throwing three questions at you at once, but mix, you guys have been far ahead of the curve of other CPG companies for a long period of time. Are you still finding incremental drivers, as we think about mix contribution going forward?

太棒了。我们可以稍微细分一下吗？我知道你可能不想太具体，但如果我们能在销量、定价和组合之间进行区分的话。近年来，你们的销量增长大致保持在 1% 到 2% 之间，上季度由于一些动态原因有所放缓。

那么，展望销量方面，随着定价的回落，你们预计销量会有所改善吗？还是说你们并没有看到太多的弹性，因此为了达成这些目标，销量大概会保持在类似的区间，定价和组合也有类似的问题。在过去几年里，定价方面你们显示了很强的定价能力。这是否让你们更有信心在定价上采取更激进的策略，还是说在这个消费者环境下你们需要更加谨慎？

我一次提了三个问题，关于组合，你们在很长一段时间里都远远领先于其他消费品公司。你们是否仍然发现有增量驱动因素？当我们考虑未来组合贡献时，是否还能找到新的动力？

James Quincey

Yes, that's my favorite, the multiple question as long as. Let me try and unpack it. I think pricing will continue to be there, and be a driver, because in the end, it's kind of related to the input costs and we're going to continue to pass those on. We're going to continue to earn with the consumer the right to the pricing through the marketing innovation, the RGM, the execution, the coolers, et cetera, et cetera.

So I don't feel that that is somehow going to end up being a big trade-off with the volume component of the piece. Obviously, you need to go country-by-country and work out exactly what that balance is. It all looks very kind of solomonic at an aggregate level that you get, if you want 5% to 6% you get half in volume from half in price, but it's not equally the same in every country.

And so, there is an unpacking of the portfolio, but I don't see them in a large trade-off position, because as you say, we have been driving volume growth barring the third quarter over the last number of years. If you take a five year average it's probably at 2% or something like that. There's clearly a focus through all the levers in making sure, we keep -- not just keep people in the franchise, but grow the size of the franchise. And so, I've been able to do all that management of price, whilst delivering the volume growth, not at the cost of the volume growth.

The mix component has a couple of features to it. One which is probably a bit more temporary, which is kind of all the weirdness of the last few years of the changes in channel mix and category mix and depending on whether we owned the vertically integrated business or didn't own the vertically integrated business. So there's a kind of a bit of weirdness in mix, which will come down, because historically speaking, mix has been kind of bounced around net neutral. We've used the advantages, we gained from premiumization to then lean more heavily on affordability in certain parts of the world.

So we've used it as a portfolio management tool to get us the overall results. So I think at an aggregate level, it looks relatively simple and of course you need to go country-by-country. The U.S. has got more price and mix than volume whereas you go to India or whatever and you're getting more volume than you're getting price. And so, you have to kind of then de aggregate the portfolio.

是的，这是我最喜欢的多个问题。让我试着解答一下。我认为定价将继续存在，并且会继续推动增长，因为归根结底，它与输入成本相关，我们将继续将这些成本转嫁给消费者。我们将继续通过市场营销创新、RGM（零售利润管理）、执行、冷藏等方式，赢得消费者对定价的认同。

所以，我不认为这会导致销量部分出现较大的权衡。显然，你需要按国家逐一分析并找到确切的平衡点。从整体来看，如果你希望达到 5% 到 6% 的增长，可能会是从销量和价格各占一半，但在每个国家的情况并不完全相同。

因此，需要对组合进行拆解，但我不认为它们处于一个大规模的权衡位置。正如你所说，我们在过去几年中一直在推动销量增长，除了第三季度。如果以五年为平均值，销量可能大约增长了 2% 或类似的数字。显然，我们专注于通过所有手段，确保不仅保持现有市场份额，还能扩大市场份额。因此，我能够在管理价格的同时，保持销量增长，而不是以牺牲销量增长为代价。

组合的组成有几个特点。其中一个可能是更为临时性的，即过去几年中渠道组合和品类组合发生的变化，具体取决于我们是否拥有垂直整合的业务，或者没有这些业务。因此，组合中有一些变化，未来这些变化会减少，因为从历史上看，组合在净中性上波动。我们利用从高端化中获得的优势，在全球某些地区更加注重 affordability（价格亲民）。

所以我们将其作为一种组合管理工具，以实现整体结果。因此，在总体层面看起来相对简单，当然你需要按国家逐一分析。美国的价格和组合的比重大于销量，而如果你去印度，或者其他地方，你会看到销量比定价更为重要。因此，你需要对组合进行拆解。

Dara Mohsenian

Okay. That's helpful. And you mentioned the commercial beverage opportunity. Can you just touch on in the emerging and developing markets, how that's progressed recently? It's hard for us to judge given a lot of the volatility, but your efforts around commercial development in those markets, where you have lower per capita consumption and lower disposable income and what sort of in your control versus the consumer developing at higher income levels as you think about it?

好的，这很有帮助。你提到了商业饮料的机会。能否谈谈在新兴市场和发展中国家，这方面最近的进展如何？由于很多波动性，我们很难判断，但是你们在这些市场中的商业开发工作如何？在这些市场中，人均消费较低、可支配收入较低，哪些因素是你们可以控制的，而哪些又是消费者随着收入水平提高而发展的因素？

James Quincey

Yes. And I think the volatility increases as you de-aggregate, like, the more you go down to the country level, the more you get more volatility with some countries as well. But as you come up again, starting at the top level, if you take the developing and emerging economies, they account for 80% of the world's population. The 20% that live in the developed economies probably pay for seven out of -- seven to eight out of every 10 drinks they drink, they pay for in some way shape or form tea, coffee, alcohol, non-alcoholic beverage. They're paying for it and we have a teens market share.

But the 80% of people in the developing and emerging economy, they're only paying for two and a bit of every 10 drinks that we drink. So the vast majority of the industry is yet to be created, and of commercial beverages we're in the high-single-digit share. So we're gaining share. There's lots of share to gain and there's lots of industry to create, and that continues. The developing economies continue to expand in terms of volume growth.

So if you de-aggregate the company, the volume growth that we have been getting is more concentrated in the developing and emerging countries than it is in the developed economies and that is going to continue. Now, of course, as you then go down to a country level, you get more of a roller coaster. But take in India, I mean, apart from last quarter it's been a long-term consistent grower of volume, even places like Nigeria, which is super volatile on an intra-year basis are long-term growers of volume.

是的。我认为，随着我们对国家级别的拆解，波动性会增加。越是深入到国家级别，某些国家的波动性就越大。但是如果从更高的层级来看，发展中和新兴经济体占全球人口的 80%。而在发达经济体中，生活在那里的 20% 人口可能支付了他们所喝的每 10 杯饮料中的七到八杯，无论是茶、咖啡、酒精饮料还是非酒精饮料，他们都在为此付费，而我们在其中的市场份额仅为个位数。

但在发展中和新兴经济体的 80% 人口中，他们只支付了每 10 杯饮料中的两杯多一点。所以，行业的绝大部分尚未形成，而我们在商业饮料领域的市场份额仍处于个位数的高端。我们正在获取市场份额，还有大量市场份额可争取，且行业仍在创建之中，这一趋势将持续。发展中经济体的销量增长依然在继续。

因此，如果我们拆解公司，销量增长的主要来源是来自发展中和新兴国家，而不是发达经济体，这一趋势将继续。现在，当然，随着我们深入到国家层级，你会看到更多的波动。以印度为例，除了上季度，印度长期以来都是一个稳定的销量增长市场，即使是像尼日利亚这样在年度内部波动较大的市场，也是长期的销量增长者。

Dara Mohsenian

Okay, great. And segmenting your portfolio a bit, Sparkling has had really strong results in recent years, since COVID despite some skepticism if you go back historically. What are you doing to sustain that momentum? What's been the unlock there? Maybe you can touch on the Zero Sugar portfolio too. And then also just what role do stills play in the portfolio as part of your growth platform?

好的，太棒了。我们稍微细分一下你们的产品组合，碳酸饮料在过去几年里取得了非常强劲的业绩，尤其是自 COVID 以来，尽管回顾历史时曾有一些怀疑。你们正在做什么来维持这种势头？成功的关键是什么？也许你可以谈谈无糖饮料产品组合。然后，静态饮料在你们的产品组合中扮演什么角色，作为你们增长平台的一部分？

James Quincey

So I mean the unlock of Coke is really the quality of all the different levers like. It's a brand that responds to marketing that is relevant and engaging for the current consumers and the next-generation of consumers that comes with the variance and the package mix that's also relevant for the consumers of today and tomorrow and works with the retailers.

And yes, that's led to more and improved formulas of Coke Zero, more and different package sizes that suit each occasion and backed up by the commercial execution of the bottling system and the cooler. So it's not been about a radically different view of Coke from the last 138 years, but a much better and much more effective execution of those key levers making it relevant for consumers and relevant for retailers. And that's driven Coke as you say over the last number of years.

我认为可口可乐成功的关键在于所有不同推动因素的质量。它是一个能回应相关且吸引当前消费者和未来消费者的市场营销的品牌，它具备适应当前和未来消费者的多样性和包装组合，并且与零售商密切合作。

是的，这导致了更多改进的可口可乐零度配方，更适合各种场合的包装尺寸，并得到了瓶装系统和冷藏设备的商业执行支持。所以，这并不是对过去 138 年来可口可乐品牌的根本性看法的改变，而是更好、更有效地执行这些关键推动因素，使其对消费者和零售商保持相关性。正如你所说，这也推动了可口可乐在过去几年的发展。

James Quincey

And then, the rest of the portfolio, the other key decision in there is not to try and be deterministic in saying, well, okay, I think the consumers need this much of stills or whatever and they can only have this much sparkling and I'm going to -- they're going to have to drink whatever I want to make. That's not how the world should work or consumer business would. So the focus has been saying to the organization.

We need to do justice to each brand. Yes, we need to go around the world and prioritize, which country category combinations we want to focus on, specifically in the next number of years, as we lead towards a future destination of a total beverage company, because you're not going to get there all in one go. But as you focus on those different category country combinations, do justice to each brand in this country and the consumer will decide, whether you're doing a good job or not and it will work or it won't work. But we cannot expect to tell them what to drink.

然后，产品组合的其余部分，另一个关键决策是不要过于决定性地认为，消费者只需要这么多静态饮料，或者只能有这么多碳酸饮料，而我将决定他们喝什么。这不是世界应该运作的方式，也不是消费者业务的方式。因此，我们的重点是告诉整个组织。

我们需要公平对待每个品牌。是的，我们需要环绕全球，优先考虑在接下来的几年中，哪些国家和品类组合是我们需要专注的，因为我们要朝着成为一个全方位饮料公司的目标前进，因为你不能一步到位。但当你专注于这些不同的品类国家组合时，要公平对待这个国家中的每个品牌，消费者将决定你是否做得好，是否有效。如果有效就会成功，如果无效就不会成功。但我们不能指望告诉消费者应该喝什么。

Dara Mohsenian

Great, that's helpful. And as you think about health and wellness broadly, and this is a subject that's coming up increasingly with GLP-1, political changes in the U.S., how do you think about your portfolio in that context? How do you adjust your strategies perhaps and what role does Zero Sugar play in that, as you think about that piece of the portfolio?

很好，这很有帮助。随着你们对健康和健康的广泛考虑，尤其是与 GLP-1、美国政治变化等相关的话题越来越多，你们如何在这一背景下看待你们的产品组合？你们可能如何调整策略？无糖产品在其中扮演什么角色，在你们考虑产品组合中的这一部分时？

James Quincey

I think it starts from the essential idea you need to be relevant for consumers, and what's relevant for you or me or someone else out there is not always the same thing, even within health and wellness in verticals.

And so, what we have learned to do over the last number of years is, in part make sure we have the options available for whatever choice you want to make, whether that's -- because it's got low calorie or no calories in it versus the original formula, maybe it's got more protein in it like the Fairlife drinks, maybe it's got other ingredients in it, vitamins or whatever. In the end, like what the consumer wants, you need to be able to offer them the variety of choices and by the way, the variety of packages.

I think that has allowed us over the years to adapt to different trends from consumers or from regulators and manage our way through. So really having the portfolio, having the choices of product and package, being adaptable and staying relevant to consumers and that is going to help us. I mean, I know all the GLP-1 data that you mean, it's quite anecdotal as to its total impact on food and beverages, but certainly the initial stuff you see is, yes, they consume less of some categories, but they consume more of other categories.

So if you have a portfolio, you can adapt from those sorts of consumers as they change their consumption mix in the same way you can adapt to. I think if you've got the portfolio, you've got the choices and you're willing to be adaptable, you can manage all these things.

我认为关键在于，你需要确保对消费者具有相关性，而什么对你或我，或者其他消费者有用并不总是相同的，甚至在健康和健康领域也是如此。

因此，我们在过去几年学到的一部分经验是，确保我们为消费者提供多种选择，不论是因为产品低卡或无卡，还是相较于原始配方，它可能含有更多蛋白质，比如 Fairlife 饮料，或者可能含有其他成分，像是维生素等。最终，消费者需要的正是多样化的选择，顺便提一下，还有多样的包装。

我认为，这使我们能够在多年的发展中适应消费者或监管者的不同趋势，并在其中管理我们的进程。因此，拥有一个多样化的产品组合，提供不同的产品和包装选择，具备灵活性并保持对消费者的相关性，这将帮助我们应对挑战。我知道你提到的 GLP-1 数据，其对食品和饮料的总体影响其实还是比较零散的，但显然你看到的初步数据表明，消费者在某些品类的消费减少了，但在其他品类的消费却增加了。

所以，如果你有一个完整的产品组合，你就能够适应那些消费者的需求变化，正如你可以适应他们的消费组合变化一样。我认为，只要你拥有多样的产品组合和选择，并且愿意保持灵活，你就能够应对所有这些变化。

人性喜欢甜食，这是由基因所决定的，其他的都是噪音。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. That's helpful. Yesterday, you updated your sustainability goals. So it's fortunate timing here today. Can you just talk about the role that sustainability plays in your strategy? Why it's important and why the revised targets and just confidence around ability to achieve those targets?

很好，这很有帮助。昨天，你们更新了可持续发展目标。所以今天这个时机非常巧妙。能否谈谈可持续性在你们战略中的角色？为什么它很重要？以及为什么修订后的目标以及实现这些目标的信心？

James Quincey

Yes. There's two headline points before getting into some of the specifics of those goals. One is, in the long run, to have a successful sustainable business it needs to be in a sustainable ecosystem and you can't use up all the finite ingredients of X and then business will end. So it needs to be seen in the context of we want a long-term business, that's run for the long run with access to the things we need for the long run.

Secondly, the core elements of the same facility strategy are not some in parallel, hobby or nice hat. They're central elements to the business. The three we updated in particular was on water, on packaging, and on climate or carbon. But interpret carbon as energy, because that's what's driving it. So, water, there's no way we can have a beverage industry without water, and when any part of the world the [equiphorer] gets into trouble, even though industrial users tend to be a tiny percentage of the water usage relative to other users like agriculture, the problems concentrate on the big brands like us.

I mean, you can see those, that's happened around the world. So it's very important for us that we have access to water, which is why we set a goal to be water neutral. Actually, we're now water positive. We return to the environment more water than we use, because we need access to that water. The reality is, we have plants in countries that are very dry. Sometimes we close the factories and move them, or we work with the government to do reforestation to water systems so that we can replenish the aquifer, so we can access the water.

It's done, it may be a societal good, but it's also critical to business we have access to the water. So, that's one. And we reaffirmed our commitment to being water positive. The second one was on packaging. The packaging material we use, these materials all have economic value, if they're collected.

The idea of a circular economy around packaging materials, particularly these ones, because not all packaging will have intrinsic economic value, but these ones do, because you can chop up these bottles and make new bottles with them. And so, if we can collect them, not only do you not have waste, but I can collect the bottle, and over the long run I can just reuse them and I don't have to buy virgin resin, I can use recycled resin. So there's a whole intrinsic logic to doing it.

And of course part of the packaging strategy is, can I make them thinner? Like, if you take a can today and compare it to a can 50 years ago, like 50 years ago you needed to go to the gym to crush those cans. Now they're the thickness of a hair. You can crush them with your hand if you want it. That's great, uses less material, it's sustainable, it's also much cheaper.

Again, it's a business strategy and the same is true in a way with climate. Climate, the biggest factor in climate is ultimately energy. To the extent that we can buy green energy, great, if it's competitive. To the extent that we can use less energy, because we have thinner packaging or more efficient plants or more efficient trucks, the better off we'd be. So it is an intersection of what's important societally, but also what's necessary for the business.

是的。在讨论这些目标的具体细节之前，有两个重要的要点。首先，从长远来看，要想拥有一个成功的可持续商业，就必须处于一个可持续的生态系统中，不能用尽所有有限的资源，否则商业就会结束。所以它需要放在一个我们想要长期运营、并能够长期获得所需资源的背景下来看待。

其次，所有这些设施战略的核心要素并不是并行的、爱好式的或可选的，它们是商业的核心部分。我们特别更新的三项目标分别是水、包装和气候或碳排放。但碳的解释应为能源，因为能源是推动这一进程的因素。因此，水，饮料行业没有水就无法存在，当全球任何地方的水源出现问题时，尽管工业用户占水使用量的比例相对于农业等其他用户较小，但问题通常会集中在像我们这样的大品牌上。

这些问题在全球范围内都有发生。所以，对我们来说，拥有水的获取权限非常重要，这就是我们设定水中性目标的原因。实际上，我们现在已经是水正向的，我们回馈环境的水比我们使用的水还要多，因为我们需要访问这些水资源。现实是，我们的工厂位于一些非常干旱的国家。有时我们会关闭工厂并搬迁，或者我们与政府合作进行水资源系统的植树造林，以便补充地下水层，从而确保我们能获取水源。

这可能是社会利益，但对于我们的业务来说，水的获取同样至关重要。所以，这是其中一项目标。我们重新确认了致力于水正向的承诺。第二项则是包装。我们使用的包装材料，如果它们被收集，所有这些材料都有经济价值。

包装材料的循环经济理念，尤其是这些材料，因为并非所有包装都具有内在的经济价值，但这些包装有，因为你可以将这些瓶子回收再造，做成新的瓶子。因此，如果我们能够收集它们，不仅不会产生废物，而且我可以收集瓶子，长期来看，我可以反复利用它们，无需购买新的原料树脂，可以使用回收的树脂。这样做有其内在的逻辑。

当然，包装战略的一部分是，看我能否让它们变得更薄。例如，如果你今天拿起一个罐子与 50 年前的罐子做比较，50 年前你得去健身房才能压扁那些罐子。而现在它们的厚度只有头发的一半，你甚至可以用手把它压扁。那很好，使用的材料更少，更可持续，同时也便宜得多。

同样，这也是一项商业战略，从某种程度上说，气候也是如此。气候的最大因素最终是能源。只要我们能购买绿色能源，且它具备竞争力，那就很好。只要我们能减少能源消耗，因为我们的包装更薄、工厂更高效、卡车更高效，那么我们就能从中受益。所以，这是一种社会重要性与商业需求的交汇。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. That's helpful. I wanted to spend some time on Fairlife. It's been such a big success story for you guys. A, just at an aggregate level, can you help us understand how important this could be to your growth potential, as you look out over the next few years versus the level of size of the business today?

B, the different products in the portfolio, maybe talk a little bit about the strategy from a product perspective, as you look to grow this business over the next few years and the big unlock is sort of capacity or your strategies for growing the business in general?

很好，这很有帮助。我想花些时间谈谈 Fairlife。它对你们来说是一个巨大的成功故事。A，整体来看，你能帮助我们理解，在未来几年展望中，Fairlife 对你们的增长潜力有多重要，与今天的业务规模相比，未来的潜力如何？

B，产品组合中的不同产品，或许可以谈谈你们在产品层面的战略，展望未来几年如何发展这个业务，关键的突破是产能，还是你们整体的业务增长战略？

James Quincey

Sure. I mean it's been an overnight success 12 years in the making, and it's been compounding steadily over the last decade and it's already here. If you look at the U.S. year-to-date, the two brands that have added most retail sales in the U.S. are Coca-Cola and Fairlife, like the number 1 and the number 2. So you've got the like one of the oldest brands and one of the youngest brands driving the retail sales growth.

And it's because the product is fantastic, the marketing work has been done, the innovation work is done, the capacity is coming online, more capacity needs to come online somewhere north of here. They're building a huge facility to bring online more capacity. So it has already arrived at scale. I think that's the first thing. This is not something that is yet to come. It's already here at scale, witnessed the sales growth.

It's got good profitability. It's got tremendous growth prospects in the core products, in the core Fairlife milk, which is a very low lactose milk, proteins. It has the core power, which is dialed up, protein that has a nutrition plan, which is kind of the same idea. These are very on-trend products. I think, there's a long way to go with those. Implicit in your question of kind of is there other innovations, it's like am I going to go into more solid forms of milk? We have a long way to go in beverages before worrying about other types of milk.

当然。我是说，这已经是一个经历了 12 年的“即时成功”，过去十年来稳步增长，现在已经达到了规模。如果你看一下美国的年初至今的零售销售数据，增加最多的两个品牌是可口可乐和 Fairlife，分别是第一和第二。所以你有一个最古老的品牌和一个最年轻的品牌共同推动零售销售的增长。

这主要是因为产品非常出色，市场营销工作已经完成，创新也已完成，产能也正在上线，更多的产能也需要上线，预计会在目前的基础上进一步扩展。他们正在建设一个大型设施，增加更多的产能。因此，Fairlife 已经达到了规模。我认为这是最重要的事情。这不是一个还未到来的目标，它已经在规模化上实现，销售增长就是证明。

Fairlife 的盈利能力不错，核心产品的增长前景也非常巨大，比如 Fairlife 牛奶，它是一种低乳糖牛奶，富含蛋白质。它还包含了核心的营养成分，这也是同样的概念。这些都是非常符合趋势的产品。我认为这些产品还有很大的发展空间。你提到的“是否有其他创新”的问题，比如说是否会进入更多固态的牛奶形式？在我们在饮料领域探索之前，我们还有很长的路要走。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. And part of the strength of the brand is the unique supply chain, the cows themselves and the way they're raised. Is international something that's a priority as you look out over the next few years or is that something that takes a longer period of time to develop in the brand?

很棒。这个品牌的强大部分来源于其独特的供应链，尤其是奶牛本身以及它们的养殖方式。展望未来几年，国际化是否是一个优先事项，还是说这需要更长的时间来发展品牌？

James Quincey

The number one priority is to do the right thing in the U.S. They got to bring online the capacity, which is then will continue to support the long-term sales growth. I'm sure that, in other developed economies, this need state remains important and to a large extent underserved, but the organization of the dairy industry is very local, and there is a component of this, which is connecting back into the dairy landscape and the rest of the world. It's not as easy to export as a coke or a body armor or a water.

And so, I don't think we're going to focus on it, as intensely as quickly as some might think, because we really want to continue to explore and expand in the U.S. opportunity.

我们的首要任务是做好美国市场的工作。他们需要引入更多产能，这将继续支持长期的销售增长。我相信，在其他发达经济体中，这种需求依然重要，并且在很大程度上仍然没有得到充分满足，但乳制品行业的组织形式非常本地化，且这一行业与乳制品景观以及全球其他地区有很大的关联性。这不像可乐、运动饮料或者水那样容易出口。

因此，我认为我们不会像一些人可能认为的那样快速和强烈地专注于国际化，因为我们确实希望继续在美国市场上探索和扩展机会。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. So maybe that's a good time to talk a little bit about capital allocation. We've talked about the significant growth opportunity internally. As you think about M&A from a longer-term perspective, there are a few key product segments where Coke is underexposed, as you think about the global NAB category.

So how do you sort of juxtapose the focus on M&A versus organic growth and how do you think strategically about some of those product categories, maybe where you're underexposed and what might be interesting for the company over time and fit into the strategy and also categories, where you can extend your competitive advantage and have success?

很好，或许这是一个很好的时机来讨论一下资本配置。我们已经讨论了公司内部的显著增长机会。考虑到全球 NAB 类别，你认为在长远来看，Coca-Cola 在某些关键产品领域相对较弱。

那么，如何在并购与有机增长之间做出平衡？你是如何战略性地思考这些产品类别的，特别是在一些你们尚未深入的领域？这些领域可能在未来对公司有吸引力并适合公司战略的哪些地方？另外，也包括一些你们可以扩展竞争优势并获得成功的类别？

James Quincey

Yes. M&A, particularly bolt-on M&A has had a big role in what we've done. I mean, if you just take a retrospective long-term view, we have in the last 20 plus years, I think added something like $15 billion brands. Seven of those were ones we invented and created ourselves. Of the eight, they had some component of M&A, five of the eight were small brands we bought that we turned into $1 billion brands and three were brands that were already $1 billion brands from the start.

So if you look at what has it taken to expand our portfolio of $1 billion brands, the vast majority of it or half of it is stuff we invented ourselves. The next quarter plus is small stuff we bought that we turned into big and the smallest contributor is actually medium-sized brands that we bought. And I think that’s a strategy that seems sensible for the future going forward.

So I think the likelihood is, we will -- to the extent that we see gaps, we're likely to pick up smaller things that we can turn into bigger things. Otherwise, it's very hard for us to create value, if they're too big when we buy them. And we're not in a rush. I think, there's a degree of uncertainty going into '25 and I don't think, there's anything wrong with the strategy of accumulating cash, and then seeing if there are opportunities and if not then return it to shareholders.

是的。并购，尤其是补充性并购，在我们所做的工作中起到了重要作用。回顾过去 20 多年，我认为我们大约增加了 150 亿美元的品牌。其中七个是我们自己发明和创建的。在这八个品牌中，它们都有一定的并购成分，其中五个是我们购买的小品牌，并将它们发展成了 10 亿美元的品牌，另外三个品牌一开始就已经是 10 亿美元的品牌。

所以如果你看一下扩展我们的 10 亿美元品牌组合所需要的努力，绝大多数，或者说一半的品牌是我们自己发明的。接下来的一部分是我们购买的小品牌，并将其发展壮大，而对比之下，购买中型品牌的贡献最小。我认为这是一个对未来看起来合理的战略。

所以我认为，未来我们很可能会在看到有空缺的地方时，选择收购一些较小的品牌，并将其发展壮大。否则，如果我们购买的品牌过大，实际上很难为我们创造价值。而且我们并不急于此事。我认为，进入 2025 年，确实存在一定的不确定性，我认为以现金积累的战略并没有问题，然后看看是否有机会，如果没有，我们就将其回馈给股东。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. You mentioned on the Q3 call, the dynamic external landscape, it's become more dynamic since then even. So maybe we can just talk a little bit about the consumer and some of the regions around the world. Perhaps, let's start on North America and Western Europe, just what you're seeing there. There's been some channel shifts in both geographies. So it would be helpful to have an update on what you're seeing from a consumer standpoint in those regions?

太棒了。你在第三季度的电话会议中提到，外部环境变得非常动态，而这一点在此后甚至变得更加动态。所以或许我们可以谈谈消费者以及全球一些地区的情况。也许我们从北美和西欧开始，看看你在这些地区看到的情况。在这两个地区，渠道发生了一些变化。所以能否给我们提供一下在消费者角度看到的更新情况？

James Quincey

Yes, look, I think in aggregate the U.S. consumer remains very resilient. As we've talked about on previous calls, yes, the lower income portion of the population has been under more purchasing power pressure, exhausting the savings. You can see that in some of the footfall traffic to certain channels or basket incidents in other channels and looking for more affordable price points, which, of course, we've been responding to as we go forward.

But also there's plenty of money in the economy that's driving the more premium segments witness the continued growth of Fairlife. I think you've got both things happening at once in the U.S. I see that as an ongoing feature of the U.S. economic environment, consumer environment. But in aggregate, that makes it pretty resilient and you can still see lots of growth in the U.S.

I would -- you mentioned Western Europe. Western Europe is a slightly more subdued version of the same dynamic. You have people on the purchasing power pressure for sure and responses to do with affordability. Yes, there are premiumization opportunities, but the aggregate is a lower level of growth than what we've been seeing in the U.S. through this year.

是的，看看，我认为美国消费者整体依然非常有韧性。正如我们在之前的电话会议中提到的，的确，低收入人群的购买力受到更大压力，储蓄逐渐耗尽。你可以在某些渠道的客流量或其他渠道的购物篮中看到这一点，消费者开始寻找更实惠的价格点，当然，我们也在积极回应这一趋势。

但经济中依然有充裕的资金，推动了更高端细分市场的增长，Fairlife 就是一个很好的例证。我认为，美国同时发生着这两种现象。我认为这是美国经济和消费环境的一个持续特征。总的来说，这使得美国市场非常具有韧性，你仍然可以看到美国市场的强劲增长。

高端的增长更快，AXP和COF的区别。

你提到西欧。西欧在某种程度上是相同动态的略微温和版本。毫无疑问，消费者的购买力受到了压力，且他们的反应更多是与可负担性相关。是的，仍然存在高端化的机会，但整体而言，增长水平低于我们在美国今年所看到的增长。

Dara Mohsenian

Okay, great. And then, in developing markets, maybe you could touch on Latin America, obviously tough comps last quarter, Mexico was a bit softer, is that more of just a temporary comparison dynamic. You have had very strong growth in recent years. How do you think about that region going forward and also maybe focus a bit on volume versus pricing, given pricing has been so strong and confidence around driving volume growth, given some of the volatility we've seen Argentina and Mexico recently, et cetera?

好的，太棒了。然后，在发展中国家，或许你可以谈一下拉丁美洲，显然上个季度面临了较难的同比基数，墨西哥稍微放缓，是否更多的是一种暂时性的比较动态。你们近年来有着非常强劲的增长。你怎么看待该地区未来的发展？同时，能否更多关注一下销量与定价的问题，考虑到定价一直很强，并且在面对阿根廷和墨西哥等国家最近出现的一些波动时，你们如何有信心推动销量增长？

James Quincey

Yes. Look, Latin America has been a long-term success story for the Coke Company, over a long period of time, including recently. I think that's going to continue to be true. In the more immediate short-term, there was a little softer in Q3 partly due to the comps. I think also worth remembering, an election cycle in Mexico is likely to see more money go into the economy pre the election than the few months right after it, which is not too surprising, very common pattern in a lot of countries around the world.

So I think you're seeing some of that work through. None of that makes me think that, there's a sort of structural issue, and I'm confident in the growth patterns in Mexico and Brazil has also been contributing. I think we're going to continue to see volume growth in Latin America. Pricing is going to moderate. A lot of the Latin American pricing is coming out of the hyperinflation in Argentina, which thankfully seems to be moderating or at least moderating in Argentinian terms. I don't think anyone knows what that number is going to be in 2025 except for less than 2024.

So, yes, you'll see that come down. But that's a very specific situation around Argentina rather than generalized high inflation in all the other countries. So I think Latin America has proven to be a strong resilient business over a long period of time, and I feel good about the business, even if there's the odd bump compared to the comparisons and election cycling and all that sort of stuff.

是的。看看，拉丁美洲长期以来一直是可口可乐公司的成功故事，长期以来一直如此，包括最近的情况。我认为这种情况将继续保持。短期来看，第三季度的表现稍微有所放缓，部分原因是基数效应。我认为，还需要记住，墨西哥的选举周期可能会在选举前几个月向经济注入更多资金，而不是选举后的几个月，这并不令人惊讶，这是很多国家普遍存在的模式。

所以你可以看到这些现象逐渐显现。所有这些情况并不让我觉得这是一个结构性问题，我对墨西哥的增长模式充满信心，巴西也做出了贡献。我认为我们将继续看到拉丁美洲的销量增长。定价将会有所放缓。拉丁美洲的很多定价来自阿根廷的恶性通胀，幸运的是，它似乎正在放缓，至少在阿根廷的标准下是这样。我认为，没有人知道 2025 年的数字会是多少，只知道它会低于 2024 年。

所以，是的，你会看到这些情况有所回落。但这只是阿根廷的一个非常特殊的情况，而不是所有其他国家普遍存在的高通胀问题。因此，我认为，拉丁美洲在长期内已经证明了其强大的韧性，即使与历史比较，或是选举周期等因素影响下有所波动，我仍然对这项业务感到乐观。

Dara Mohsenian

Okay, great. And maybe two other markets, China and the Middle East. Obviously, China has come under macro pressure in recent quarters and we've seen broadly across CPGs some pressure. Maybe just talk about how you're responding to that as an organization and any strategy changes, as you think about the long-term, given the operating environment has changed there?

And in the Middle East, maybe just give us a bit of an update there, sort of cycling through some easier comps in some of the turbulence that emerged last year. What's sort of the impact from that or level of contagion, as you see it or do you feel like you have a pretty good handle around that right now in terms of what's already happened there?

好的，太棒了。然后，或许我们再谈谈另外两个市场——中国和中东。显然，中国在最近几个季度面临了宏观压力，而且我们在消费品行业普遍看到了压力。或许你可以谈谈作为一个公司，你们是如何应对这一局面，并且考虑到那里的经营环境发生了变化，你们在长期战略上做出了哪些调整？

在中东，能否给我们一个更新，看看你们如何应对去年出现的一些不稳定因素，以及相比于更容易的基数，效果如何？从你们的角度来看，这种情况对你们的影响或传导效应如何？或者你们现在是否能够很好地掌握局势，特别是考虑到已经发生的情况？

James Quincey

Yes. China, I mean, clearly there's been slightly more subdued macros. I see it as kind of part of a multi-year property correction that then obviously bleeds into the broader economy, not unlike other parts of the world have gone through, which kind of gives you a slightly more subdued consumer outlook. It certainly seems to be the case that, if it starts inclining to the slightly more negative, the government puts some stimulus in to kind of bring it back to the okay level. And so, I think that's the kind of environment we've been working through.

Within that context, we've also refocused our business on the soft drinks, more on the juice drinks and less on what in the U.S. we'd call case back water. And that has made the overall numbers much more negative than the soft drink numbers, which are more kind of the flat to slightly positive. But that's been a choice that we've been focused on using kind of less of that as part of the portfolio.

The long-term opportunity remains to have a bigger and better business in China. So we're not super concerned about the short-term corrections, because we see that actually within the overall result the restaging and the regrowth of the sparkling is going to be good. And of course we're gearing up for Chinese New Year at the beginning of the year. So that should be good. The Middle East.

是的。中国，显然，宏观经济的压力稍微有些加大。我把它看作是多年的房地产调整的一部分，显然这波调整影响了更广泛的经济，和世界其他一些地区经历的情况类似，这种情况带来了稍微更加疲软的消费前景。看来确实如此，如果情况稍微转向更为消极的方向，政府会通过一些刺激措施来帮助把经济带回到相对稳定的水平。所以，我认为我们正处于这样一个经济环境之中。

在这样的背景下，我们也将业务重点重新聚焦到软饮料、更多关注果汁饮料，而减少了我们在美国所称的“瓶装水”类产品。这使得整体的数字看起来比软饮料的数字更为负面，后者更接近持平或略有正增长。但这其实是我们在产品组合中做出的选择，减少了对瓶装水的依赖。

长期来看，我们依然看好在中国发展更大、更强的业务。因此，我们并不太担心短期的调整，因为我们认为，整体结果中，碳酸饮料的重新定位和增长将会非常好。当然，我们也在为春节做准备，预计这将带来很好的业绩。至于中东市场。

Dara Mohsenian

Yes, the Middle East situation, how you sort of manage through that volatility? Have you seen some of that spread to other regions or give us a bit of an update there?

是的，中东的情况，您是如何应对这种波动的？您是否看到这种情况蔓延到其他地区？能给我们提供一些更新吗？

James Quincey

Yes. I mean, look obviously the impact from the war has been devastating. People from the system have been killed on both sides in collateral damage. It's been a very difficult time for the system in the Middle East. The impact, clearly there's been kind of a combination of spillover of consumer reaction to some of the events plus economic impacts in some of the countries. So you've got both things going on at the same time.

Clearly, there's some consumer pullback from international brands in a set of countries affecting the Coke or some of the other brands, that are more obviously associated with the U.S. and that's not just a Middle Eastern thing. It's affected Turkey. It's slowed over to some of the Muslim countries in Southeast Asia. But as you say some of that is now in the base so to speak.

We obviously are very focused on doing the right thing for the people in our system, very focused on saying in those countries, look, actually the Cokes in Country X are largely all made in Country X by local employees. And so it is a profoundly local business that we're focused on. And that then kind of takes some of the edge off what's going on. It's not an import business, so to speak. And we manage through it as best we can. It's not in aggregate going to kind of topple the tower.

是的。显然，战争带来的影响是毁灭性的。无论在哪一方，许多人在这场冲突中失去了生命，这对中东地区的系统来说是一个非常艰难的时刻。显然，这种影响主要是消费者对一些事件的反应加上一些国家的经济影响的结合。因此，当前的局势中有两种因素同时发生。

显然，在一些国家，消费者对国际品牌的需求有所回落，尤其是那些与美国关联较为明显的品牌，这不仅仅是中东的问题。土耳其也受到了影响，东南亚的一些穆斯林国家也出现了这种影响。但正如你所说，某些影响现在已经在基数中体现。

我们显然非常专注于为我们体系中的人们做正确的事情，特别是在这些国家，我们会强调：实际上，X 国的可口可乐大多是由当地员工在X国本地生产的。因此，这是一个深刻的本地化业务，我们专注于这一点。这在一定程度上减轻了当前局势的影响，它并非一个进口业务。我们尽力应对。总体而言，它不会摧毁我们的基础。

对付脑残的公式，西瓜甜不甜自己是不知道的，生理上没有这个功能。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. During the Q3 call, you gave us a bit of perspective on 2025 and you talked about leveraging productivity levers to drive efficiency in the organization. Can you give us a bit more detail on what levers you anticipate will be most important in 2025? Obviously, top-line growth is moderating sequentially, as some of that hyperinflation and some of the excess pricing comes off, even in non-hyperinflation market.

So is margin improvement and outsized focus in '25? Is productivity a focus, particularly given you've done so much good work on there already over the last few years? How should we think about that?

太棒了。在第三季度的电话会议中，你给了我们一些关于 2025 年的展望，并提到利用生产力杠杆推动组织效率的提升。你能详细讲讲你预计哪些杠杆在 2025 年会最为重要吗？显然，随着一些恶性通胀的减缓以及某些过度定价的消退，即使在非恶性通胀市场，顶线增长也在逐步放缓。

那么，2025 年是否会特别聚焦于利润率提升？生产力是否会成为重点，尤其考虑到你们在过去几年已经做了很多优秀的工作？我们应该如何看待这个问题？

James Quincey

I think there's no silver bullet out there. There's no one big un-pooled lever that's going to kind of make a huge difference in 2025. It's going to be more a question of -- we're going to start the year leaning into growth. Just because pricing is moderating does not mean, there will not be growth. We're going to lean into growth. We're going to go for volume growth, and we're going to go for the price mix growth and be top-line led.

And that is the starting point and that will always be the number one objective going into any year. Yes, we will look for efficiencies through the chain, making sure the input costs, looking to have the gross margin do well-being judicious on the use of marketing. But again, we're leaning into the growth.

Obviously, we want that market to be effective and efficient. I think we've had a -- we've done a good job over the years of kind of keeping operating expenses contained, but there's no big step change sitting out there. It's going to be a question of judicious management of each key line item to make sure, we get the result we want.

我认为并没有什么“灵丹妙药”，也没有一个单一的、强力的杠杆可以在 2025 年产生巨大变化。这更多是一个问题——我们将以增长为导向开启新的一年。仅仅因为定价有所放缓，并不意味着我们不会有增长。我们将专注于增长，目标是实现销量增长，并推动价格与组合的增长，保持顶线主导。

这是我们的出发点，这将始终是我们进入任何一年时的首要目标。是的，我们会在整个链条中寻找效率，确保输入成本的控制，并在市场营销的使用上保持审慎。但同样，我们也会倾向于推动增长。

显然，我们希望市场能够高效且有效。我认为，我们在过去几年中已经很好地控制了运营支出，但没有一个巨大的“跳跃式”变化即将发生。关键是要谨慎管理每一项重要支出，确保我们得到想要的结果。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. And as I think back over the past few years, you've had a really impressive track record of growing earnings and overcoming external headwinds. You've delivered pretty steady earnings growth versus if you go back years ago, when FX and some of the bottling divestitures were pretty big headwinds. We are seeing some of those headwinds come up for 2025, right? Currency, where we are today is certainly a substantial headwind, interest expense in theory is a headwind also.

So just putting all of that together, how confident are you that 2025 is an earnings growth year? And how do you think about potentially offsetting some of those headwinds strategically versus reinvesting in the business? You've talked about how historically you have to overcome FX to some extent, if it's continuous from a multi-year standpoint. So, I'm just trying to understand how that all comes together in 2025?

太棒了。回顾过去几年，你们在盈利增长和克服外部逆风方面取得了非常出色的业绩记录。你们实现了相当稳定的盈利增长，而与几年前相比，外汇波动和一些瓶装业务的剥离曾是巨大的逆风。我们确实看到这些逆风因素在 2025 年再次出现，对吧？当前的汇率形势无疑是一个巨大的逆风，理论上利息费用也是一个逆风。

将这些因素放在一起考虑，你对 2025 年实现盈利增长的信心如何？你如何看待通过战略性地抵消一些逆风因素与重新投资于业务之间的平衡？你曾提到，历史上你们在面对汇率问题时，虽然这些问题可能持续多年，但你们总能找到克服的办法。那么，我只是想理解这些因素在 2025 年如何结合起来？

James Quincey

Yes. We're yet to finalize everything for 2025 and probably even if we do, it'll change somewhere in 2025, because there's so many uncertainties and variables out there that I think it's going to be a fluid year, let's say. Look, but the point you set up the question is perhaps the key thing. If you went to the period like late -- since the financial crisis to about 2017, that kind of 10 year period when the EPS was stuck at $2, every time FX was high-single-digits negative, EPS declined, U.S. dollar EPS declined. I mean, so once it got over 6%, EPS was negative.

Since the 2017 period, even in years of high-single-digits FX headwinds, we've grown U.S. dollar EPS. So, the first thing is like, it in part is a question of aiming to achieve it. Now having said that, nothing we're going to do in '25 is going to be at the cost of sacrificing the long run. If we need to invest for the long run, we're going to do it, even if that has short-term cost. I don't -- I'm not trying to say like, we need to do something crazy. That's not the point I'm making. But we're not going to be short-term is to kind of achieve some sort of artificial objective.

But over the last number of years, every time there's been an FX headwind of this kind of magnitude, we've grown U.S. dollar EPS, maybe not as much as we would have loved, but we've grown it. And so, we're going to apply ourselves to all levers and do justice to the investment in the every single local business in every single category and pull the corporate levers, such that we can achieve our overall objective, because you can't have the dividend growing every year in dollars, without the EPS growing in dollars, otherwise the wheels will start coming off. So it needs to all hang together and that's the challenge that we've set ourselves that we have to achieve.

是的。我们还没有完全确定 2025 年的所有细节，可能即便确定了，到 2025 年也会发生一些变化，因为目前有很多不确定性和变数，我认为这一年将是一个变化多端的一年。看，你提出的问题可能是最关键的一点。如果你回顾从金融危机到 2017 年的那段时期，约有 10 年的时间内，每次汇率高位的负面影响，都会导致每股收益下降。美国美元计价的每股收益下降。我是说，一旦汇率超过 6%，每股收益就是负数。

这是最真实的风险，2009年开盘价13.81，2017年收盘价36.81，过得去的增长速度。

自 2017 年以来，即便在面临高汇率逆风的年份，我们的美元计价每股收益仍然增长。所以，首先要明确的是，这在一定程度上是一个目标问题。现在，话虽如此，2025 年我们做的任何事情都不会以牺牲长期发展为代价。如果我们需要进行长期投资，我们会去做，即使这有短期成本。我并不是在说我们需要做一些极端的事情。我的意思不是这个。但我们不会为了达成某种短期目标而牺牲长期利益。

但在过去的几年中，每当我们面对这种程度的汇率逆风时，我们的美元计价每股收益仍然增长，可能没有我们期望的那么多，但依然是增长的。因此，我们将应用所有杠杆，公正地对待每一个本地业务和每一个品类的投资，并拉动企业级杠杆，以便我们能够实现我们的整体目标，因为你不可能在美元计价上每年都增长股息，而没有每股收益的增长，否则公司的整体运行会出现问题。因此，所有这些因素需要协同运作，这是我们设定的目标，也是我们必须实现的挑战。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. That's helpful. And over the -- under your tenure you focused on digitizing Coke and the system in general. Maybe give us a bit of an update here today with AI, with greater technology coming into play. What areas are you most excited about in terms of a tangible payoff? Is it marketing? Is it innovation? Is it productivity? How do you think through that conceptually for the broader organization?

很好，这很有帮助。在你任期内，你专注于数字化可口可乐和整个系统。能否给我们今天提供一些更新，特别是在人工智能和更大技术应用方面？你最兴奋的领域是哪一块，尤其是那些能够带来实际回报的领域？是市场营销？是创新？还是生产力？你是如何从整体战略角度思考这些问题的？

James Quincey

Look, I think historically, there's been a use of analytical AI models by the supply chains and R&D, which I think have been in the field for some period of time and delivering results. I think more recently, you've got two things that are layering in, which are more -- which are encouraging for long term value.

One that's coming in through the selling system, as the selling system has moved from sort of analog, the person has to turn up at the store so that you can make an order all the way through a platform so that the retailer can order for themselves, because it's an EDI or they can order on a website and add, so they can order 24x7 to suggested selling. So the system now has all the data.

It can now complement the salesperson and the retailer, because those are the two people deciding what goes in the store and complement and they're saying, stores like you should have this or do that or do the other and that is generating uplift in sales through the bottling system. So AI systems that can complement and accelerate the effectiveness of what the salesperson and the retailer decide to do in the store is proving that it can drive results.

The second area that's starting to now come online is all the kind of output of the generative AI. I mean, I'd say that, by entering and saying like what we don't know about where this stuff is going is more than what we do know. But having said that, like just some of the early uses by the system are starting to demonstrate value.

So we spend hundreds of millions every year on point of sale material in the store that says, I have some sort of marketing picture or it's a straight offer. You think of how many photos are taken of people or meals or bottles, the people who design it, don't follow the design rules, we send them. It's a cottage industry of hundreds of millions. We have an AI app now, you just type in what you want the point of sale material to be and it spits it out.

And if it's James and Dara having a pizza and you get it and you don't like the fact the machine put olives on, you go take the olives off and it takes the olives off and then it just prints it. And so, it's much more effective and it's cheaper. So there's already generative AI that's improving frequency and delivering on effectiveness.

And then you go to kind of the really central bit of marketing which making the ads. This year's Christmas ad that's being used in most places is all done through generative AI prompts. It's not CGI after effect on a human ad, it's a fully generative AI ad, which has been: One, been much more effective with consumers. Two, it was much quicker to make. And three, it was cheaper to make. So clearly you've got some use cases there starting to look pretty attractive.

Now, why am I not sounding more encouraged and euphoric than I am sounding, apart from being British and it not being general nature, it's because actually there's uncertainty like what are the long-term economics of these things going to be. I mean, there's a lot of money being spent on servers, it's not clear to me what the price of using these services is going to be in five years' time. Plus, it has to be clear to me. What is a competitive advantage for me versus what's the price of entry?

If generative AI is just the new operating system on your computer, everyone has it, everyone uses it, we just adapt and move on just like we adapted to smartphones, or does it somehow confer a competitive advantage on me because of the way I use it or my access to it or whatever. So that is all yet to play out.

我认为，从历史上看，供应链和研发已经使用了分析型人工智能模型，并且这些模型已经在这一领域应用了一段时间并取得了成果。我认为，最近有两点很重要，它们为长期价值创造带来了鼓舞。

首先，销售系统正在逐步引入人工智能，销售系统从模拟模式转变为，现在零售商可以通过平台自己下单，而不再需要人工去到店面下单，这种模式更加智能化，零售商可以通过EDI或网站全天候下单。这时，系统已经具备了所有数据。

它现在可以补充销售人员和零售商的工作，因为这两个人是决定什么商品进入商店的人，系统会建议零售商，比如“像你们这样的商店应该有这种产品”或者“你应该做这个”。这种方式推动了瓶装系统中的销售增长。所以，人工智能系统可以补充和加速销售人员和零售商在商店中的决策有效性，证明它能够推动实际成果。

推荐引擎理论上可以监控周围人群的消费动态。

第二个开始上线的领域是生成型人工智能的输出。我认为，进入这一领域，实际上我们不知道的比已知的还要多。但话虽如此，系统中的一些早期应用已经开始展现其价值。

我们每年在店铺的销售点材料上花费数亿，这些材料通常是一些营销图片或简单的促销信息。你可以想象有多少照片是拍摄人物、餐点或瓶子的，设计者并没有遵循我们提供的设计规则。这是一个规模庞大的产业，数百亿美元的市场。现在我们有一个人工智能应用，你只需输入你想要的销售点材料内容，系统就会自动生成。

例如，如果是 James 和 Dara 在吃披萨，假设机器在披萨上放了橄榄，而你不喜欢橄榄，你只需要去掉橄榄，系统会立即做出调整，并打印出来。这样更高效，成本也更低。所以，生成型人工智能已经在提高频率和提升效果方面发挥作用。

再说到市场营销的核心部分：广告制作。今年的圣诞广告在大多数地方都使用了生成型人工智能提示。这不是后期制作的 CGI 效果，而是完全由生成型人工智能制作的广告：一方面，这种广告与消费者的互动效果更好；二方面，它的制作速度更快；三方面，它的制作成本也更低。因此，显然，这些应用案例已经开始看起来非常有吸引力。

现在，为什么我没有表现得更加兴奋和乐观，除了因为我是英国人，这种情绪不常见，实际上是因为我们对这些技术的长期经济效益仍然存在不确定性。我认为，虽然在服务器上花了很多钱，但我并不清楚使用这些服务的费用在五年后会是多少。另外，还需要明确的是，对于我来说，竞争优势是什么，和进入的成本有何不同？

传统产业对科技的理解是个问题，特别是对广告业务的理解。

如果生成型人工智能只是你电脑上的新操作系统，每个人都有并且都在使用，我们只是适应并继续前进，就像我们适应智能手机一样，还是它以某种方式赋予我竞争优势，因为我使用它的方式、我对它的访问权等等。所以这一切仍然需要时间来检验。

Dara Mohsenian

Great. That was a great discussion. Thank you so much for being here. We're going to end things here.

太棒了。这是一次很棒的讨论。非常感谢你今天的分享，我们就到此结束。

2024-12-03 James Quincey.Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference (Transcript)

2024-12-03 James Quincey.Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference (Transcript)

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