Monster Beverage Just Reported Stellar First Quarter Earnings

Beverage giant Monster Beverage Corp. reported its first quarter earnings report on Thursday, revealing earnings of $261.5 million.

The Corona, California-based company reported net income of 48 cents per share while eight analysts that had been surveyed by Zacks Investment Research had waited for 43 cents.

The energy drink company saw revenue of $946 million during the quarter which was also better than the $916.3 million that six analysts surveyed by Zacks had waited for.

Rodney Cyril Sacks commented on the earnings call, “In the first quarter of 2019, net sales were $946 million, up 11.2% from $850.9 million in the first quarter of 2018. Net sales in the first quarter were negatively impacted by approximately $22 million of foreign currency movements. Gross profit as a percentage of net sales was 60.6% compared to the 3 months ended March 31, 2019, and March 31, 2018. For the quarter ended March 21, 2019, gross profit as a percentage of net sales was positively affected by increased sales prices of our products sold in North America and, to a lesser extent, product sales mix. Gross profit as a percentage of net sales was primarily negatively affected by geographical sales mix and increases in certain input costs.”

“Distribution costs as a percentage of net sales were 3.8% for the 2019 first quarter as compared to 3.9% in the 2018 first quarter. Selling expenses as a percentage of net sales were 11% for the 2019 first quarter as compared to 11.5% in the same quarter in 2018. General and administrative costs as a percentage of net sales were 12.9% for the 2019 first quarter as compared to 12.3% in the same quarter in 2018. In the quarter, payroll expenses as a percentage of net sales were 7.7% compared to 7.5% in the same period in 2018.”

He added, “We launched Monster in Bolivia in the first quarter of 2019. We also launched Monster in Paraguay last week and anticipate launching in the Dominican Republic in the second quarter. In China, we completed the rollout of Monster Ultra in the first quarter. During the first quarter, we also began the launch of Monster Mango, which we’ll continue throughout the second quarter of 2019. We’ve significantly expanded our shelf space for Monster with these 3 SKUs in our targeted top 40 cities and key accounts. We continued the rollout of Monster across India, and Monster is now available in approximately 90% of the country. We are planning additional SKU launches in India later in 2019.”
Shares of the stock have seen gains of about 18% since the year started.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Monster Beverage Corp. (NASDAQ: MNST) and have not been compensated for this article.