ATLANTA — Emerging economies internationally and the fairlife brand domestically should help the Coca-Cola Co. achieve its long-term goal of 4% to 6% organic annual sales growth, said James Quincey, chief executive officer.

“If you want 5% to 6%, you get half from volume and half from price, but it’s not equally the same in every country,” he said Dec. 3 during the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference.

Developing and emerging economies account for 80% of the world’s population, he said, while 20% live in developed economies. Consumers in developed economies probably pay for seven or eight out of every 10 drinks they consume, which includes tea, coffee, alcohol and ready-to-drink beverages, Quincey said. Consumers in developing and emerging economies only pay for about two out of every 10 drinks they consume.

“So the vast majority of the industry is yet to be created,” Quincey said.

Volume growth for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola thus will be more concentrated in developing and emerging economies than in developed economies, he said.

“Now, of course, as you then go down to a country level, you get more of a roller coaster, but taking India, I mean, apart from last quarter, it’s been a long-term consistent grower of volume,” he said. “Even places like Nigeria, which is super volatile on an intra-year basis, are long-term growers of volume.”

Conflict in the Middle East has impacted Coca-Cola and other companies based in the United States.

“Clearly, there’s some consumer pullback from international brands in a set of countries affecting Coke or some of the other brands that are more obviously associated with the US, and that’s not just a Middle Eastern thing,” Quincey said. “It’s affected Turkey. It’s flowed over to some of the Muslim countries in Southeast Asia.”

In the US, fairlife volume and sales should increase, because Coca-Cola is investing $650 million in a 745,000-square-foot facility for fairlife production in Webster, NY.

“I mean, it’s been an overnight success 12 years in the making, and it’s been compounding steadily over the last decade, and it’s already here,” Quincey said of fairlife.

Due to the fact that organization within the dairy industry is more local, Coca-Cola will concentrate on fairlife growth in the US more so than internationally.

“It’s not as easy to export as a Coke or a BodyArmor or a water,” Quincey said.