Metal packaging products manufacturer Crown Holdings (NYSE: CCK) reported Q3 CY2025 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 4.2% year on year to $3.20 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $2.24 per share was 12.7% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Commenting on the quarter, Timothy J. Donahue, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "The Company continued its robust 2025 performance during the third quarter, with adjusted diluted earnings per share increasing 13% and segment income 4% above a very strong prior year quarter. Driving the results was 12% volume growth in European Beverage, leading to a gain of 27% in European segment income. Global beverage can volumes were mixed during the quarter with softness in Asia and Latin America offsetting double-digit advances in Europe and the Middle East.

Company Overview

Formerly Crown Cork & Seal, Crown Holdings (NYSE: CCK) produces packaging products for consumer marketing companies, including food, beverage, household, and industrial products.

Revenue Growth

Reviewing a company’s long-term sales performance reveals insights into its quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Regrettably, Crown Holdings’s sales grew at a weak 1.3% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This was below our standards and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. Crown Holdings’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its revenue was flat over the last two years.

This quarter, Crown Holdings reported modest year-on-year revenue growth of 4.2% but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 1.5%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 2.4% over the next 12 months. Although this projection indicates its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below average for the sector.

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Operating Margin

Crown Holdings has managed its cost base well over the last five years. It demonstrated solid profitability for an industrials business, producing an average operating margin of 11.3%. This result was particularly impressive because of its low gross margin, which is mostly a factor of what it sells and takes huge shifts to move meaningfully. Companies have more control over their operating margins, and it’s a show of well-managed operations if they’re high when gross margins are low.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Crown Holdings’s operating margin rose by 1 percentage points over the last five years, as its sales growth gave it operating leverage. Its expansion was impressive, especially when considering most Industrial Packaging peers saw their margins plummet.

This quarter, Crown Holdings generated an operating margin profit margin of 13.2%, down 1.2 percentage points year on year. Since Crown Holdings’s operating margin decreased more than its gross margin, we can assume it was less efficient because expenses such as marketing, R&D, and administrative overhead increased.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

Crown Holdings’s EPS grew at an unimpressive 7% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. On the bright side, this performance was better than its 1.3% annualized revenue growth and tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

We can take a deeper look into Crown Holdings’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Crown Holdings’s operating margin declined this quarter but expanded by 1 percentage points over the last five years. Its share count also shrank by 13.9%, and these factors together are positive signs for shareholders because improving profitability and share buybacks turbocharge EPS growth relative to revenue growth.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Crown Holdings, its two-year annual EPS growth of 15% was higher than its five-year trend. This acceleration made it one of the faster-growing industrials companies in recent history.

In Q3, Crown Holdings reported adjusted EPS of $2.24, up from $1.99 in the same quarter last year. This print easily cleared analysts’ estimates, and shareholders should be content with the results. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Crown Holdings’s full-year EPS of $7.65 to stay about the same.

Key Takeaways from Crown Holdings’s Q3 Results

Revenue and EPS both beat, making for a solid quarter. We were also impressed by Crown Holdings’s optimistic EPS guidance for next quarter, which blew past analysts’ expectations. We were also glad its full-year EPS guidance was raised and trumped Wall Street’s estimates. Zooming out, we think this was a solid print. The stock traded up 11.2% to $104.97 immediately after reporting.

Crown Holdings put up rock-solid earnings, but one quarter doesn’t necessarily make the stock a buy. Let’s see if this is a good investment. We think that the latest quarter is only one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free for active Edge members.