Pepsi tops quarterly revenue estimates on LatAm strength

(Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc reported quarterly revenue above Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, as investments in marketing and developing new products for Latin America paid off.

However, the company missed sales estimates for North America beverages, as well as for its Frito-Lay branded snacks.

Sales in its North America beverages unit, which houses Gatorade, Mountain Dew and its trademark cola brand, rose 2 percent to $5.46 billion in the third quarter, but fell short of analysts' average estimate of $5.6 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"We continued to see very strong operating performance from our international divisions, propelled by developing and emerging markets," Indra Nooyi said on her last day as Pepsi's chief executive officer. Nooyi will remain chairman until early 2019.

Net income attributable to the company rose to $2.50 billion, or $1.75 per share, in the third quarter ended Sept. 8, from $2.14 billion, or $1.49 per share, a year earlier.

Net revenue rose 1.5 percent to $16.49 billion.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of $16.36 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares were down marginally in low volumes in early trading on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)