Abbott Laboratories Beats Revenue Expectations With Balanced Growth
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) released its fourth-quarter report Wednesday morning, beating expectations for revenue and meeting its guidance for earnings per share. Shares were up by about 3% on the news.
For the quarter, revenue rose by 7.1% year over year to $8.31 billion compared to analysts' consensus estimate of $8.26 billion, and was up 8.5% after excluding foreign currency effects and a discontinued business. Adjusted earnings per share were up 17.3% to $0.95, precisely hitting the midpoint of the guidance range management provided three months ago.
Abbott's largest segment, medical devices, provided its strongest sales gain -- 11.3%, excluding foreign currency impacts. Sales of the company's continuous glucose monitoring system, FreeStyle Libre, increased 62%, and sales of the MitraClip heart valve implant product grew 29%.
Source Fool.com
