The Coca-Cola Company struck a confident tone in its latest annual results. On February 10, the soft drinks giant reported 5% organic growth in 2025 and pledged to maintain that momentum in 2026.
“We have a durable strategy and our runway is long,” summed up Henrique Braun, chief operating officer and incoming CEO. “I’m confident we will deliver on our 2026 guidance and capture the best opportunities available.”
Coca‑Cola’s stock climbed to a 52‑week high of $80.41 two days after the results, backed by a raft of positive analyst commentary. Jeffries described the company as “set for acceleration”.
That enthusiasm wasn’t just confined to the sales figures. Analysts have also lent a vote of confidence to the longer-term strategic commitment to “fuel a new decade of growth”.
Current CEO James Quincey, who will step down at the end of March, has made clear Coca-Cola can’t afford to rest on its laurels.
“The old expression that Woodruff had, the future belongs to the discontented, is absolutely true in the beverage industry,” he told Morgan Stanley’s Global Consumer & Retail Conference in December. “So, we have to sit down and what are we going to keep, what are we going to evolve, what are we going to transform, how are we going to come back and make sure next year is another winning year?”
The drinks giant is now mounting a shake-up of everything from its leadership team to its innovation pipeline and approach to marketing. So, what are the key points to note in Coca-Cola’s strategy, and what will they mean for the future?
Coca-Cola’s leadership team
Quincey has described Coca-Cola’s people as one of its “biggest advantages”, alongside its growth mindset.
However, the company is closely examining its headcount and structure to ensure it is as efficient as possible. In January, Coca-Cola revealed it would cut 75 jobs at its Atlanta head office, starting from this month.
Further layoffs are likely to be on the cards over the course of the year as the soft drinks giant reshapes the workforce to unlock its “next phase of growth”.
The upheaval also extends to its top team. In December, Coca-Cola announced Braun – who has been at the company for three decades – would take over from Quincey at the helm on March 31. Quincey, meanwhile, will stay on as chair.
The announcement elicited a positive response from analysts. HSBC, for example, said the appointment of Braun was “an optimal choice for the Coke system”.
The new CEO was likely to continue the successful principles established by Quincey, such as his commitment to refranchising company-owned bottlers and creating a “consumer and client-centric, digitally enabled brand”, the bank said.
So at the very top, it’s likely to be a continuation of the same core principles. However, Coca-Cola is also shaking up its leadership team with the creation of a new role: a chief digital officer.
Sedef Salingan Sahin, currently president of the Eurasia and Middle East operating unit, will take up the role at the end of March. “Sahin will lead the next chapter of Coca‑Cola’s digital journey, integrating the company’s digital network and connecting work across related functions,” the company said in the announcement.
Her appointment forms part of Coca-Cola’s long-stated commitment to ramping up its digital prowess. “We’re definitely leaning into tech, data and AI under this umbrella that a lot of people call digital transformation for us,” Braun told the Barclays Consumer Staple Conference in September.
“It’s more about the business transformation, making the bridge from a world that had been analogue for many years into a world that’s going to be there, it’s becoming totally digitised.”
On the consumer side, Braun cited Coca-Cola’s AI-powered Christmas ad as an example of its digital evolution. On the operational side, he said bottlers were digitising their sales platforms to “not only get closer to the consumers, but to understanding better what is the next product or the next proposition we need to bring that’s going to add more value”.
Analysts see Sahin’s appointment as a sign of Coca-Cola doubling down on digital.
“Coca-Cola is prioritising digitalisation as a cornerstone of its 2026 innovation strategy,” Ramsey Baghdadi, consumer analyst at market research company GlobalData, says.
“Operational restructuring through automation and job realignment is designed to foster agility and responsiveness to shifting consumer preferences and technological advancements, positioning Coca-Cola for sustainable growth in a competitive landscape,” he adds.
Baghdadi’s only caveat is that Coca-Cola must be mindful of how it uses customer data. “The majority of consumers are still wary about sharing too much personal information,” he points out. “This demonstrates the importance of digital transparency in Coca-Cola’s long-term strategy to ensure consumer-brand loyalty.”
Coca-Cola’s innovation
Alongside digital transformation, innovation has been named as a cornerstone of Coca-Cola’s strategy.
In a Q3 earnings call, Quincey said the company was prioritising “bigger and bolder innovation” – citing Sprite + Tea in North America, Bacardí mixed with Coca‑Cola in Mexico and Europe, and Powerade Springboks Edition in South Africa.
“During the first three quarters of this year, innovation contributed strongly to revenue growth and we’re continuing to have strong velocities on our innovation,” Quincey added.
That focus could be a necessity, rather than just an additional growth mechanism. In its response to the latest full-year results, AJ Bell highlighted the risks facing the main Coke brand. “Coca-Cola is anticipating sluggish demand for fizzy beverages as health-conscious meets price-conscious, especially on home turf,” it said.
That feels less like being behind and more like a calculated decision on whether the prize is big enough to merit making huge changes to Coke’s global apparatus
Guy White, Catalyx
For now, there’s little to suggest sales of Coke are facing a substantial slowdown. In its annual results for 2025, the soft drinks giant revealed classic Coca-Cola had held its sales, as growth in EMEA and Asia Pacific was offset by declines in Latin America and North America.
However, as AJ Bell points out, sales of its zero-sugar variant grew far faster in the face of growing health concerns. Coke Zero Sugar shot up by 14% over the full-year period.
Meanwhile, water, sports, coffee and tea also showed promising growth rates. They were up 3% for the final quarter of 2025 and 2% for the full-year period.
Coca-Cola is ramping up its presence in the latter with innovations like its first ever boba product, launched under the Cappy brand in Turkey. The bubble-style drink contains fruit-syrup filled pearls that are designed to deliver a “unique sensorial experience”.
Considering the innovation landed in November 2025 – long after bubble tea first burst onto the scene – you could argue Coca-Cola is behind the curve.
Yet Guy White, CEO of innovation consultancy Catalyx, sees it differently. “On boba, it’s notable that Coke launched a juice with pearls rather than chasing bubble tea directly,” he says. “For me, that feels less like being behind and more like a calculated decision on whether the prize is big enough to merit making huge changes to Coke’s global apparatus.”
“Coca-Cola can innovate, but it has to be careful how and where,” he adds. “The company’s strategy seems to be to focus on fewer, bigger bets such as Zero Sugar as a growth engine, Fairlife as a protein platform and Topo Chico as the premium hydration option. They are not investing in quick turnaround stunts – the machine is too big for that – they are focusing scalable system plays.”
GlobalData’s Baghdadi points to the launch of Coca-Cola Cherry Float – unveiled earlier this month in markets including the US, Canada and UK – as an example of savvy innovation under its core brand. “Nostalgia is important in 2026 because it offers comfort and familiarity during times of uncertainty and rapid change,” he says.
Another notable launch was the Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Year 3000 limited edition, developed by AI. Launched in 2023, it fell under the Coca-Cola Creations suite of limited editions, and was an early signal of its commitment to the use of emerging tech.
Coca-Cola’s local marketing
Finally, Coca-Cola has made several mentions of localising its marketing strategy.
In its latest full-year results, the company said it was “recruiting the next generation of consumers through compelling local marketing platforms”.
“The company continues to focus on consumer passion points and key drinking occasions, coupled with strong commercial execution from bottling partners,” it said.
Coca-Cola pointed to activations such as Fanta’s Halloween campaign, which spanned 50 markets, as an example. It offered immersive local experiences like ‘The Haunted Fanta Factory’, a limited-edition launch, five horror-themed packaging designs and increased display and shelf space.
That execution illustrates another priority mentioned by Braun in the earnings call: campaigns that carry all the way through to the shelves. “We will aim to step change recruitment, especially with young adult consumers, by better integrating our marketing campaigns with commercial execution at the point of sale,” he pledged.
The Costa elephant in the room
Amid all this enthusiasm, there was a notable elephant in the room: Costa Coffee. The coffee shop brand and chain was not mentioned once in the full-year earnings call, after Coca-Coca revealed plans for a selloff in August.
In January, the Financial Times reported Coca-Cola had abandoned plans to sell Costa after bids for the chain failed to meet its £2bn price mark.
If the brand remains in the portfolio, it doesn’t look to be a priority. In Coca-Cola’s third quarter results, Quincey admitted the soft drinks giant expected “much more growth” from the non-retail side of Costa Coffee.
And in its latest full-year results, the company affirmed its commitment to an “asset-light agenda”.
Still, Costa is only a small part of a far larger strategic direction for the business.
“Coca-Cola has arguably been one of the standout large-cap CPG performers of the past decade, consistently outperforming peers on growth, margins, and shareholder returns,” sums up White at Catalyx. “I don’t think that’s down to luck, I think it reflects a company that has been disciplined, possibly cautious, in how it defines and executes innovation.”
