CORONA, Calif. (AP) _ Monster Beverage Corp. (MNST) on Thursday reported fourth-quarter profit of $255 million.

On a per-share basis, the Corona, California-based company said it had profit of 47 cents.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 46 cents per share.

The energy drink maker posted revenue of $1.02 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $996.9 million.

For the year, the company reported profit of $1.11 billion, or $2.03 per share. Revenue was reported as $4.2 billion.

Monster Beverage shares have risen slightly since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has dropped almost 7%. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $63.74, a rise of 8.5% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on MNST at https://www.zacks.com/ap/MNST

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News