Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest beverage maker, said Thursday that its profit jumped 37 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period of last year.

The Atlanta-based company said it earned 1.28 billion dollars, or 54 cents a share, for the three months ending Sept. 30, compared to a profit of 935 million dollars, or 39 cents a share, for the same period of last year.

In the third quarter, Coca-Cola's revenue rose by 8 percent to 6.04 billion dollars from a revenue of 5.60 billion dollars in the same period a year ago.

Overall, the company's unit case sales volume increased 5 percent in the July-September period. It saw strong sales of its water brands, but unit case sales volume of carbonated soft drinks slipped one percent.

For the first nine months of this year, Coca-Cola said it earned 4.01 billion dollars, or 1.67 dollars a share, compared with a profit of 3.65 billion dollars, or 1.50 dollars a share, for the same period of last year.

Its revenue in the nine months was 17.55 billion dollars, up 6 percent from the 16.54 billion dollars recorded a year ago.

Source: Xinhua