UPDATE 1-Molson Coors profit up on market share gains

Molson Coors Brewing Co reported a higher quarterly profit on Wednesday that met Wall Street expectations, helped by market share gains in Canada and Britain.

The brewer, which recently merged its U.S. operations with those of SABMiller PLC to form MillerCoors, reported third-quarter net income of $173.2 million, or 94 cents per share, up from $134.7 million, or 74 cents per share, a year ago.

Underlying profit, excluding items, was 95 cents per share, in line with analysts' average estimate, according to Reuters Estimates.

Net sales fell 45 percent to $921.1 million, while sales by volume fell 58 percent to 4.6 million barrels. This was due to the transfer of all U.S. beer sales to the joint venture MillerCoors, which Molson has an equity stake in.

Including volume from the joint venture, total worldwide beer volume rose 0.2 percent to 12 million barrels.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

((martinne.geller@thomsonreuters.com, +1 (646) 223-6023; Reuters Messaging: martinne.geller.reuters.com@reuters.net;)) Keywords: MOLSONCOORS/ (See http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/shop-talk/ for "Shop Talk" -- Reuters' retail and consumer blog.)

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