What: Shares of Monster Beverage (NASDAQ: MNST) skyrocketed on Friday, shooting more than 12% higher at the opening bell and staying in that range throughout the morning. The energy-drink titan posted first-quarter results early in the morning, showing fantastic growth and funneling up to $2 billion of its bulging cash reserves into a share buyback program. So what: Monster's adjusted net sales increased 8.5% year over year, landing at $680 million. Analysts would have settled for $665 million. On the bottom line, Monster's third-quarter earnings per share jumped 29% higher. At $0.80 per share, the result was also easily ahead of Wall Street's $0.74 consensus estimate. International net sales rose at a faster 32% pace. Gross margins edged modestly higher. Now what: These strong results ride on the back of Monster's wide-ranging partnership with Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO). That game-changing deal gave Monster access to a world-class global distribution network, and it allowed both companies to revamp their product lineups in a brand-for-brand exchange. That's the secret behind Monster's sales increases, the rapid overseas expansion, and increasingly efficient operations. Monster shares have now more than doubled over the last two years. With a lot of non-U.S. territory still left to explore, this continues to look like a global growth story in the making.