Mondelez (MDLZ) earnings preview: what to watch in Q3 2026

Mondelēz International (the maker of Oreo, Cadbury, Milka and Toblerone) releases its third-quarter 2026 results on Thursday, October 29, 2026, at 4:05 p.m. ET, with a conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET. The date comes from the company's own announcement of October 15, 2026 (press release reprint). We'll publish our analysis after the results are out.

What last quarter showed

Our Q2 2026 analysis found a quarter whose headline numbers looked much better than the business underneath:

Why reported EPS jumped 145% while adjusted EPS was flat. Mondelēz buys contracts that lock in future prices for cocoa, sugar, energy and currencies. Accounting rules make it revalue those contracts every quarter and book the paper gain or loss straight away. With cocoa prices off their 2024–25 peak, that revaluation produced an $827 million gain, against a $93 million loss a year earlier. That swing alone was bigger than the whole $774 million rise in operating income. Two more items helped: a pension charge worth $0.16 a share last year didn't come back, and the tax rate fell to 19.2% from 26.9%. Take those out and profit from selling snacks fell.

Two details from the quarter matter for Q3. Organic growth (sales growth with currency moves and acquisitions stripped out) was 2.2%, and volume/mix, roughly how much more product was sold, turned positive at +0.7 points. But Europe, the largest segment at $3,377M of revenue, had pricing of −1.4 points and volume of −2.1 points. Segment operating income there fell 25.7%.

What management guided

As our Q2 report quoted it, for full-year 2026 Mondelēz:

• "now expects at least 2 percent Organic Net Revenue growth" (raised on year-to-date strength);
• kept adjusted EPS growth of flat to +5% in constant currency (that is, measured at last year's exchange rates);
• kept free cash flow of about $3 billion;
• expects currency to add about 2.0 points to reported revenue growth and $0.05 to adjusted EPS;
• expects cocoa "to remain elevated compared to historical levels in the near- and medium-term."

First-half adjusted operating income was down 12.8% in constant currency, so even the bottom of the EPS range needs a clearly better second half.

Three things to watch in Q3

1. Does cheaper cocoa finally reach the cost line? In Q2 the 10-Q said existing hedges "continue to reflect previously contracted prices", so input costs still took $56M off adjusted operating income. The total value of commodity contracts had fallen to $10.9 billion from $14.5 billion at year-end. If the older, expensive contracts are running off, adjusted gross margin (34.0% in Q2) should rise and adjusted operating income should grow again, instead of falling 6.1% in constant currency as it did in Q2.

2. Europe's price and volume. This was the main risk we flagged in Q2. If European pricing is still negative and volume is still falling, Mondelēz is giving back price without winning shoppers back, and the cocoa savings get spent on the shelf rather than kept as profit. Positive volume in Europe, or a smaller price cut than −1.4 points, would be the first sign the region is stabilising.

3. Spending and cash against the full-year targets. Higher selling and marketing spending (SG&A) cut $182M from Q2 adjusted operating income, the biggest single drag. Watch whether that keeps growing faster than sales. On cash, first-half free cash flow was roughly $0.7 billion against a $3 billion full-year target. A large step-up in Q3 would make the target believable. Any change to the "flat to +5%" adjusted EPS range will show how management now sees the year.

Also check the gap between reported and adjusted EPS again. Hedge gains or losses can swing reported EPS by hundreds of millions of dollars in either direction, so the adjusted figure and organic growth are the better guide to how the business did.