Coca-Cola HBC, said that weak currencies in emerging markets and a strong Euro combined to hit revenue in the first quarter of 2016. It noted that if the effect of currency movements were removed, sales would have risen 2%.

The bottler of Coca-Cola brands in 28 countries including Nigeria said that net sales revenue fell 2.7% to €1.32bn, from €1.35bn in the same period a year ago. Volume growth for the group was flat at 439m cases, helped by increases in developing and emerging markets.

Established markets saw the biggest decline with volumes dropping 2.7% to 132m cases, from 135m cases a year ago. Net sales revenue also fell 3.6% to €534.5m, from €554.6m in the same period a year ago.

Developing markets also saw a slight decrease in volumes of 1.9% to 81.1m cases, from 79.6m cases the previous year. CEO Dimitris Lois, said pricing remained weak, particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland. Net sales revenue dipped 1.9% to €224.1m, from €228.5m in the same quarter in 2015.

Emerging markets was the big helper for the bottler with volume growth rising 1.3% to 226.5m cases versus 223.7m cases in the same period in 2015. However, it wasn’t enough to push sales higher as net sales revenue declined 2.1% to €558.4m, from €570.2m in the same period a year earlier. The company said Nigeria was the key driver with low-teens percentage volume growth in a seasonally important quarter. The company further said that strong growth in Nigeria, Romania and Poland helped offset a weak performance in Russia.