At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Coca-Cola Company Second Quarter 2012 Earnings Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objection, you may disconnect at this time. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that the purpose of this conference is to talk with investors, and therefore, questions from the media will not be addressed. Media participants should contact Coca-Cola's media relations department if they have questions. I would now like to introduce Jackson Kelly, Vice President and Investor Relations Officer. Mr. Kelly, you may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for being with us today. I'm joined by Muhtar Kent, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Gary Fayard, our Chief Financial Officer. Following prepared remarks this morning, we'll turn the call over for your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements, including statements concerning long-term earnings objectives, and should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements contained in our earnings release and in the company's most recent periodic SEC report. In addition, I would also like to note that we have posted schedules on our company website at www.thecoca-colacompany.com, under the Reports and Financial Information tab in the Investors section, which reconcile certain non-GAAP financial measures that may be referred to by our senior executives in our discussions this morning and from time to time in discussing our financial performance, to our results as reported under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Please look at our website for this information. Now I'll turn the call over to Muhtar.

Thank you, Jackson, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by saying that I'm pleased with our second quarter and year-to-date results. We're delivering consistent top line performance in line with our 2020 Vision and long-term growth targets despite an increasingly unpredictable global economy. Our business realized solid top line results this past quarter, growing worldwide volume by 4% in the quarter and 5% year-to-date. Our second quarter comparable currency neutral net revenue was up 7% in the quarter, driven by solid price mix of 3%. Year-to-date, comparable currency neutral net revenue was also up 7% and our comparable currency neutral operating income also grew 7% in the quarter, raising our year-to-date operating income growth to 6%. We once again led industry growth, extending our volume and value share gains globally in nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages. We gained global share in the sparkling beverage category, where our portfolio is now up 3% year-to-date. This was driven by the global growth of brand Coca-Cola, which is also up a healthy 3% year-to-date. We gained global share in the still beverages category, where our portfolio grew a solid 9% in both the quarter as well as year-to-date. Importantly, we delivered these results while further enhancing the well-being of the communities and customers we proudly serve and the consumers whose lives we touch each and every day. During today's call as we discuss our performance, I'll also share a few of the meaningful ways we are serving our communities across our geographic operations, as these efforts are an integral part of realizing and sustaining our 2020 Vision. We recognize that consumers across the globe continue to feel the effects and impacts of prolonged uncertainty in Europe, the further cooling of the economy in China and a protracted recovery here in the United States. Despite…

Thanks, Muhtar, and good morning, everyone. We delivered solid results this quarter, demonstrating once again that despite an unpredictable environment, our global system is well positioned to execute our strategic plans in alignment with our 2020 Vision. Let me start with our comparable earnings per share, which came in at $1.22 this quarter, up 4% versus the prior year. This raises our year-to-date comparable earnings per share growth to 4% as well. Our comparable currency neutral operating income was up 7% this quarter, increasing our year-to-date comparable currency neutral operating income to 6%. On a comparable basis, the impact of currency on this quarter's operating income results was a 5% headwind. Comparable currency neutral net revenues grew 7% this quarter, including a 3% increase in concentrate sales and a 3% positive price mix. The currency impact from this quarter's comparable net revenue results was a 4% headwind. On a year-to-date basis, our comparable currency neutral net revenue growth held steady at 7%. We also maintained our consolidated price mix at a positive 3% this quarter. In fact, we realized positive price mix across every one of our geographic operating groups this quarter. Looking ahead, we will cycle higher price mix comparisons during the back half of 2012, which will lead to lower consolidated price mix results in the third and fourth quarters. Having said that, we continue to expect our full year 2012 consolidated price mix results to come in between 1% and 2%, in line with our long-term target range. Our gross margins softened a little further this past quarter, particularly in late May and June. This sequential trend is being driven by both ongoing currency headwinds, as well as by changing -- changes in channel and package mix across markets, as today's economic conditions are leading consumers to…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Bill Pecoriello, Consumer Edge Research.

Muhtar, considering the tough global macroeconomic backdrop, your Q2 results were certainly impressive. But you've been talking about on the call today, some of the incremental global macro headwinds we're seeing decelerating further in certain markets, so what's giving you the confidence that The Coca-Cola Company can continue this strong performance during the second half of the year? And what specific actions is the company taking to offset the incremental headwinds? You mentioned some of the packaging shifting. And maybe is there any reallocation of market spending, et cetera?

I think I'd just say -- start by saying that, firstly, we're very fortunate that our business has been doing well in recent years. I think operating in this environment has become the norm for us. It's not a passing feature now, operating in this very volatile and unpredictable environment. And I think that we're meeting the long-term growth targets set out for our 2020 Vision, even in difficult economic circumstances. And I think part of our success has been because there's been a healthy appetite for investment across our global bottling system in this environment, and stronger than it's been for a long time. Our 2020 Vision is a system vision. It's focused on long-term growth collectively with our partners -- bottling partners. And when you look back at 2010, 2011, the nonalcoholic ready-to-drink industry grew by about $65 billion in total retail dollar value. And we're pleased to say that our system represented nearly 40% of that total industry growth, well above our fair share, underscoring that vision and that collective effort and that investment is working. That said, we're naturally keenly aware of how turbulent the economic landscape is today and will continue to be this year. And we've said many times before during the past few years that we may hit a bump in the road, given the continued volatility in the macro environment, but that we're focused on meeting our long-term growth targets on realizing -- and realizing our 2020 Vision. And so far, I think you can say that, quarter-after-quarter, we've proven that. All of us at Coca-Cola, the entire system, remain constructively discontent. We know that we can always do better. And I think you've got to realize we've got a wonderful portfolio of geographic regions. And so some of them may --…

Our next question comes from John Faucher with JPMC. John A. Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Gary, I want to talk a little bit about the operating leverage guidance going forward, particularly for the third quarter. You talked a little bit about the gross margin impact. In order to get to that type of negative deleveraging, we'd probably have to see a little higher level of SG&A spending. So can you talk a little bit about that? And then also, can you talk about some of the improvement that you've started to show in North America in terms of operating profit growth there? With North America sort of -- I guess, the question is, are you expecting North America to also get better from here? Because if it does, that also makes the operating leverage in Q3 seem a little bit more surprising.

A very good question. And let me -- I'm going to have to take it in pieces and parts, if I could, and see if we can put that all that together and come up with an answer on it. But let's start at gross margin first, because I think that's the most important place to start. Even on gross margin, I think you've got to split it into a couple of pieces, split the company, look at BIG and international operations and then North America. And on BIG and international, a lot of the gross margin pressure there is really FX currency headwinds. And it's coming through in cost of sales, and there's an impact on revenue. And so that is causing some margin pressure. And the highest impact of exchange rates -- highest headwind impact of exchange rates on us this year will be in the third quarter. And then it starts moderating again on what we're cycling. So that's the first thing. The second thing, while we're on international, on margins particularly is our expectation, as we just said, is that in Japan, we think growth is going to moderate slightly from the very strong 4% that we've seen year-to-date in Japan. They're going to still have a very good year. But I think that will moderate and that will put -- that will be some margin compression on the total company. Then if you go to North America, I think, I'd say we've been very pleased. We've seen sequential improvement in North America from -- first quarter operating income was down 9, 10-ish. This quarter, it's even. And I think we'll continue to see sequential improvement, albeit kind of slow improvement, and I'll go into why, in North America. So in North America, I think what…

And also, John, just one other point on what Gary mentioned in terms of the immediate consumption business. I think if you take our sort of top 22 countries in the world, in Q1, we had probably more than 15 of them realize very positive IC growth. In Q2, we had about 11 countries out of our sort of top 22 markets that had IC growth. And the primary reason for that was the very, very, very poor summer -- the start to the very poor summer in Europe. And so I think that is also an important factor that has to be kept in mind. It was a very unseasonable situation in Europe and hopefully, it will reverse itself in the coming months. John A. Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And then, Gary, so is it safe to say that the leverage piece is transactional? So you're looking at transactional on the leverage piece and then the translational piece is separate. Is that kind of how we look at, at least internationally? Is that what you're telling us from an FX standpoint?

Say it in a different way to make sure I understand your question. John A. Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Well, I guess, in terms of there's transactional FX impacts as opposed to translational FX impacts, so is it the raw material increase in dollars in the local currencies that's driving the negative leverage from a BIG standpoint? Is that...

Yes, yes. So you've got translational impact on revenue, but then you've got transactional impact on cost of goods as well.

Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America.

Just wanted to follow up on John's question on operating leverage, just a couple of points of clarification. First, on the commodity cost increase expectation for the year of $300 million, how much has actually happened so far year-to-date?

This is Gary. I would say probably about half of it. I think it's going to be pretty well sequential through the year. And a lot of it we've already locked in and hedged. So it's pretty well, probably about half, maybe slightly less than half.

Okay. And then in terms of the effect on gross margins of your outlook for price mix having less of a contribution in the first half of the year versus the second half, I just want to make sure it was clear that what you're -- this is just simply a phasing of the way your pricing -- your planned pricing rolled through the year. It's not an expectation or a change in plan in terms of being more promotional or promoting back at all for the second half. I was just trying to...

Yes. No, Bryan, it's exactly what you said. That's exactly right. It's what our normal pricing had been, what we're cycling just as we phase through the year. We are -- have not engaged in anything relative to change into more promotional or anything. It's normal pricing and normal cycling. In fact, if anything, I would tell you that the pricing environment has stayed -- particularly in the U.S., has stayed very rational. And some of our competitors internationally are doing a lot of promotional pricing. But that's kind of normal. What you're seeing is exactly what we plan to do the whole year, have not deviated at all.

Okay. And then the last piece would just be in terms of understanding the different pieces on geographic mix. Europe is a high-margin market for you. And it sounds like, given the performance and just the outlook in terms of the macro, that you're expecting less of a contribution from Europe than you normally would expect. And now we're talking about profit contribution. So, a, is that the right way to think about it? And, b, or second, is there also anything that you're doing specifically in Europe to support profits while you've still got -- or to boost profitability while you've got kind of a soft patch from a demand perspective?

Yes. You're right on Europe. It is a high-margin, high-profitability business for us. And we're continuing to hold share. We are seeing some weakness there, obviously down 4% in the quarter. I think it's important to recognize that weather is probably as much to do with what we saw in the second quarter as the economic macros, probably 50-50 on all of Europe and probably even more so for Northwest Europe. Britain had the wettest summer so far that it's had in over the last 100 years. So the weather's been unbelievably bad. If it turns -- and I don't want to use weather as an excuse. If it turns, things will be better. We're not anticipating that, but hopefully that will be somewhat better. And we are cycling a pretty good summer from last year -- a very good summer from last year as well.

I think, Bryan, in Europe, we've got very, very strong programs in place. We've just finished one of the most successful euro activations. We have just embarking upon the Olympics programs, which globally are going to be activated in over 100 markets. We've never had that happen before. We've reached -- the greenest ever Olympics was -- we believe that our business is very strong in Europe. And as Gary said, I think there has been an anomaly in the weather. But having said that, if you look at the past -- in the last 2 years, Europe has really performed better than expectations, given how bad the consumer sentiment was deteriorating in Europe. And this should not be taken as a kind of a fall off the cliff. But certainly, Europe is continuing -- going to continue to be challenging as an environment. But our business gets essentially stronger in Europe because our brands are stronger. We're investing with our bottlers, both CCE, our Iberian bottlers, as well as Coca-Cola Hellenic. So I do believe that probably there was some factors, one-off factors that created the current result, as opposed to it being taken as a given for the rest. But I do also believe that I think you need to understand that we're in for a very protracted recovery in Europe.

Bryan, I'd add one thing. If you go back to our conference call in the first quarter, if you go back to the transcript, you asked a question on that call. And the last -- I think one of the last things I said to you in answering your question was, "Remember, we are managing this business as a marathon and not a sprint." And that's exactly what you're hearing us say today. We're in a marathon. We're in this to win. We are gaining and furthering the distance between ourselves and our competitors every quarter. We're going to continue to do that. And we feel very good that we've got the right plans in place to do it.

Our next question comes from Bonnie Herzog from Wells Fargo.

I had a question on China. You talked about the volume in China slowing due to the economic slowdown. So I was hoping you could provide a little more color on some of the symptoms of a soft landing you're seeing in your business by some of your key categories, and then possibly by area or region. And then I also would be curious to hear how your business in China performed in the quarter compared to what your expectations were early on this quarter.

I think during our last earnings call, again, I think we shared our expectation that our volume growth in China might moderate to some extent as, a, the business is not going to be totally immune to the cooling, particularly along the coastal areas of China. And I think as anticipated, the broader beverage industry in China has also felt the impact of that slowdown in the first half of 2012. But also -- and so it was not -- in terms of expectations, it's probably where we expected the business to land in terms of how we saw the marketplace developing. I think, year-to-date growth in China being a solid 8%, cycling plus 17% from prior year, I believe we're content. But certainly, we'll always try to achieve double-digit growth. But importantly, I think the rightsizing packaging efforts that we put into place in China last year continued to generate consistent incremental transactions, in line with our expectations. In fact, a little bit ahead of our expectations. And as such, total beverage transactions -- and you've heard us talk about transactions being really a really very good metric for the health of the business -- were up double-digits for both the quarter, up about 12%, and also on a year-to-date basis, up about 14%. So just want to stress that, a really important point. And again, we captured both volume and value share significantly in the sparkling beverage category in China in this past quarter. And our brands, particularly in the sparkling category, have been doing very well. And transactions, as I say, which is a great health of the business, have been progressing well. In terms of regions, I think the northern regions and the regions -- more inland regions are doing a little better than the coastal regions in China. And I think we'll continue to see that throughout the year as some consumers have moved back into the central and inland regions of China, given some of the slowing down of the export businesses along the coast.

And then just a quick follow-on. Are you seeing any signs of slowdown in any other parts of Asia? Is this spreading in any way?

We are not. I would say Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Philippines is actually doing better. We talked about Philippines having a kind of coming off the cliff a little bit after the elections, and after tremendous amounts of sort of monetary easing preelections. I think it's coming back to a good sort of balance now. And then in terms of Indonesia, I think obviously, Australia, some of Australia's exports to China are slowing down. But actually, we've had a pretty good quarter in Australia. And I don't -- we don't really see -- it's actually a pretty strong, balanced growth across the region. I would phrase it that way, Bonnie.

Our next question comes from Ali Dibadj with Bernstein. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: So maybe going back to the comment earlier about marathon versus sprint, sort of applying that again to North America and thinking about it from a long-term perspective. And obviously this quarter, you had pricing up 5%, volume down 2%. In share, it sounds like, in sparkling, roughly flat. Is that kind of a comfortable algorithm, a comfortable elasticity that you'd be looking for going forward, longer-term, sort of maybe moderating from price but kind of in that range of elasticity? Or does some of the macro challenges you're seeing now and maybe the persistence of those challenges make you think a little bit differently about that? And I guess, if you could answer that in the [indiscernible] of your margins, the margin answer you gave about North America going forward, that would be helpful.

Yes, Ali. First, let me just take sort of what we would term as sort of a normal outlook. I said it before. I think, look, in terms of moderate growth in volume in North America and we have -- and also certain amount of positive price mix, given the strength of our brands, I think, and also our new occasion channel-based packaging architecture that we've actually recreated with smaller packages with the mini cans, with the 14 ounces and with the advent also of a much wider Freestyle distribution of the Freestyle dispensing units, I think probably is the right way to think about. Given that it's going to be a protracted recovery, that's the way we would think about it. Moderate volume, 1% to 2%, and then also some positive price mix on top of that. And that's how we would see the business progressing. In terms of share, I think it's important to reflect on the fact that over the last 3 -- 2, 3 years, we've been gaining market share consistently quarter-after-quarter in the United States. If you look at consecutively, in terms of value share, since the beginning of 2010, every quarter, we've gained share if you look at the numbers in value share every quarter, adding on top of the quarter prior. So we've been coming through historically a very strong share gain environment. And I think certainly, we see the pricing environment to be logical and one that is rational, and that's very important. And I think we just have to ensure that we keep the right balance of both marketing and pricing and also improvements in customer service with Coca-Cola Refreshments that are taking -- that are improving every quarter. As we move into the year, I think you should also see us continuing that kind of trend in the United States going forward. And, Gary, if you want to talk about the margins?

A little bit on the margin. A couple of things. So North America, total volume was plus 1 on 3 points of price mix -- positive price mix. Sparkling was minus 2 on 5 points of positive price mix. And I think, Ali, your question is, is that kind of the elasticities and kind of the relationship we would expect to see going forward? And I'd tell you a couple of things. One, in a very rational pricing environment, so I think you have to underline that, and it is, the historical elasticity models would have said that you would have seen a lot greater volume decline, greater than 2%, if you took 5% of pricing. So I think that's a very good thing, obviously. Going forward, in a more normalized market, where you're not seeing the huge commodity spikes that we've seen over the last 2 years, I think a much healthier environment, we would want to see sparkling growing kind of the low 1 or 2 percentage points, kind of -- and more moderate pricing on top of that to still get a 3% or 4% or something revenue growth, but do it in a more balanced fashion with -- between volume and price, but...

And just one thing to add to that, Ali, also. I think it's important to remember that 2011 was probably a special year, where we've had to face tremendous increases and changes in commodity costs like we hadn't faced before. I mean, that's, in the United States, to the tune of about $550 million. And although it hasn't continued, thank goodness, at the same rate, we also are facing some commodity increases, of course, this year, too, not anywhere close to what it was. So have to remember what kind of pricing we had to take to ensure that our business could continue to invest for sustainable future growth in the United States coming off of 2011. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: Okay. So that's great. And I hope the better-than-expected elasticity kind of boldens a little bit more pricing, which is good. But -- so just if I could squeeze in a housekeeping perhaps question. It may or may not be a housekeeping, I guess. But on the balance sheet -- and, Gary, this may be for you. There's always a lot of moving parts, and we kind of try to keep track of it. But this quarter was another one of kind of large shifts from cash to short-term investments, large increase in marketable securities. What exactly are you doing? And what's the impact to the P&L, if any?

Yes. Most of it does not have much impact to the P&L at all. What you're seeing us do is, as we continue to build cash, most of that cash or a large part of that cash is offshore. We are moving into separately managed accounts, and so reducing exposure to banks, particularly, so that we are diversifying risk. And then we're also investing some of that -- rather than in a savings account, if you will, we're putting some of it into government bonds and some -- and AAA-rated other investments, all short-term. But it's basically just ensuring that we are diversifying against any concentrations of risk.

Our next question comes from Alice Longley of Buckingham Research Group.

My question is about volume in the second half. You've already indicated that price mix should be slowing. Can you give us some indication of what volume should look like, and particularly Brazil, the U.S. and China, versus what we've seen in the second quarter?

Yes. I mean, I think you'll appreciate that we can't give forecasts. But I think you've heard us say that we feel confident, despite the volatility that we would be looking at, reiterating our long-term targets of 3% to 4% volume growth and, again, that we manage a great portfolio of 206 markets. And we believe that based on our -- both marketing programs, as well as our strength of our brands, the strength of our system, that we would be able to reiterate our long-term growth target in terms of volume of 3% to 4% for not just the remaining part of the year, but going into the future.

Well, we've had some macro slowdown occur during the course of the second quarter in China and Brazil. And we've seen a little slowdown in your numbers. And then just is that going to continue? Or are we going to sort of stay at these second quarter levels?

I can't comment on that. But look, you've seen us in the past -- if you take the last 3 or 4 years, where we've been operating in this economic environment, you've seen us have quarters of 3% or even less or 5% or 6%. And so when less than 3 or 4 things go bad, then you'll see us higher volumes. When some more things all combine in a certain time frame, you may see less. But over a period of time -- longer period of time, we feel that the 3% to 4% is a good number to look at in terms of -- which is our long-term growth targets. We've never changed them and we think -- and generating -- for a business our size, generating a 7% revenue growth, comp currency neutral revenue growth across the world, that's, in my book, continuing to crack the calculus for growth.

And then could I ask a different question, which follows up with some that have been asked before? And this is the operating profit performance in North America. I think you've indicated that it will continue to get better sequentially in North America. And yet you've highlighted a sort of unfavorable mix in terms of channel and I think product as well and price mix here. So why do we have sequential improvement in operating profits here in North America coming?

Gary, do you want to...

Yes, yes. I'll take that one. I think what -- you've been seeing us deliver sequential improvements. I don't know that the third quarter versus the second quarter in North America -- probably, it won't be the same kind of sequential improvement you saw from minus 9 to 0. But I think you'll see some improvement in the third quarter, although there are some macro and consumer issues in the United States just because of the condition of this economy and all. And then you will see -- I would expect to see a fairly significant improvement then in the fourth quarter, particularly as you has that [ph] -- as an operating business, a finished products business has significant leverage that will come through in the fourth quarter, particularly with the extra days and the 2 extra days in the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter is clear. I'm just trying to figure out why we get improvement in the third quarter versus the second.

Just because we continue to work on the business. But I'm not saying it's going to be significant improvement. It's just there should be -- our expectation is there should be a little improvement in the third quarter.

Look, we have said that in the United States, we started -- when we started the business that we pointed out that there's going to be sequential improvement. It's also partly on how the commodities are priced into our business, and also how marketing spend operates -- the marketing spend curve operates in our business and a number of other things. So we do expect to see, as we have seen in the second quarter, which we pointed out in the first quarter, we will continue to see sequential improvement as a result of some of those other things that I've also mentioned, as well as the strength of our marketing programs going into the third quarter, particularly related to the Olympics, as well as many other local programs. In the United States, we've never had more customer partners pick up and align with us on the Olympic activation as in these Olympic Games.

One other thing I'll point out, and it's kind of tactical, but in timing, in the last year, most of or about half of the Fourth of July holiday was in the second quarter. The impact was in the second quarter, and then a little bit in the third quarter. The way the calendar fell this year, basically all or most of the Fourth of July holiday in North America will be in the third quarter, which helps the third quarter.

And our final question today comes from Judy Hong with Goldman Sachs.

Gary, just a follow-up to some of the earlier questions. If I take the puts and takes in terms of some of the changes to your guidance, so you've got better commodities, you've got better tax rate, and then you've got a bit worse interest income, and then worse FX. So net-net, my math sort of comes to kind of a wash in terms of some of those puts and takes. Do you sort of get the same calculation, just in terms of some of the puts and takes, to those aspects of the changes that you've talked about?

Yes. If you look at tax, so you've got -- kind of depending on where you were. But if you take 0.8 points on tax, that will give you $0.03 or $0.04 a share. You've got probably down $0.01 or so relative to interest. So commodities, let's call it $50 million probably positive. That's another $0.01 or so. So those are starting to wash. But then FX is going to be worse, and particularly worse in the third quarter, significantly worse in the third quarter. And then we have previously said kind of mid-single-digits headwind. I think my words were exactly the high end of our previously communicated mid-single-digits. So kind of depending on where you were. But the risk aversion that investors around the world have gone to has really driven the dollar, particularly against the emerging market currencies because the others, even on the euro, were hedged for the year. But it's primarily those emerging market currencies have really been driven hard -- hit hard just because of risk aversion.

Yes. I guess, I was just trying to understand how the gross margin impact in BIG and international from a transactional perspective, that is captured in your FX guidance.

No, no. We do not include the impact of currency on cost of goods in the FX guidance. So that's on top of it.

Okay. That's on top, okay. And then just finally, switch quickly on the U.S. So the channel and the pack shift that you're seeing, why do you think it's only a temporary shift? And sort of -- and a little bit more of a color, just because if you look at the data, I mean, take-home channel has been declining at a faster pace. You've had immediate consumption channel that's been growing. Is that not enough to really offset what's going on within kind of the immediate consumption side, the mix shift that you're seeing? And then if that's the case, I'm just surprised that the categories, like energy drink, continues to really accelerate even into June. So what are some of dynamics that you're seeing as it relates to some of the channel and product shift that you've talked about? And I guess, why is that more of a temporary situation in your view?

I think, first -- this is Muhtar. I think, first, you've got to take into account the pricing environment. 5%, I mean, that is a pricing environment that you won't see coming through all the time. And therefore, I think you need to put it into that perspective, and therefore, look at it in that regard. And also as you know, over time, the pricing impact gets evened out and the consumers get back to a normalized sort of sequence. And so I think you will be seeing some of that happen in the United States. That's one reason. The second reason is the strength of our programs. The third reason is what Gary mentioned in terms of holiday season falling into the quarter as opposed to not in the quarter, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of number of reasons why we're talking about it being not a permanent feature but a feature that will wash out through time. That's why. And so I hope that explains some of that. Thank you, Gary and Jackson. And in closing, I think I'd like to once again reiterate that we had a strong quarter and delivered quality midyear performance results. Along with our partners, bottling partners, customer partners, we're successfully navigating through an unpredictable external economic environment with a well-aligned system equipped for long-term sustainable growth. Our 2020 Vision is working. Our system remains resolutely focused on capturing the great opportunities we see ahead in all of the markets. And as we partner with our global consumers, customers, communities, we fundamentally believe we are building something lasting and something good while creating long-term sustainable value for our shareholders. As always, we thank you for your interest and your investment in our company, and thank you for joining us this morning.

This does conclude today's conference. Thank you so much for joining. You may disconnect at this time.