NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Agilent said after the close of the market on Wednesday that its Fiscal Year 2014 second quarter revenues were flat year over year, while its Life Sciences and Diagnostic revenues increased 1 percent.
For the three months ended April 30, Agilent reported total revenues of $1.73 billion, unchanged from a year ago and even with the consensus analyst estimate. Orders in the quarter were up to $1.81 billion from $1.69 billion a year ago.
By segment, Life Sciences and Diagnostics revenues rose to $577 million from $571 billion a year ago, led by pharma and diagnostics/clinical markets. Orders rose to $598 million from $579 million.
Meanwhile, Chemical Analysis revenues increased to $411 million from $401 million a year ago, while orders were up to $432 million from $408 million.
On Agilent's conference call following the release of the company's financial results, Agilent President and CEO William Sullivan said that in life sciences, the pharma/biotech end market grew 4 percent year over year, led by demand from mid-sized and specialized pharma customers.
Diagnostics and clinical revenues were up 7 percent driven by record companion diagnostics growth and strong demand for CGH arrays and target enrichment solutions, he added, while academic/government revenues were down 6 percent due to government spending delays in the US and China.
In the applied markets, food testing was up 10 percent and energy grew 2 percent, while environmental and forensics was down 5 percent, Sullivan said.
The outlook for Agilent's LDA Group — comprising the company's life sciences, diagnostics, and applied markets businesses — remains positive "supported by our backlog build, a robust pipeline of new products, and expectations for increased flows in government spending," he said.
For fiscal Q3, Sullivan said that LDA revenues are anticipated to be in the range of $1.00 billion to $1.02 billion.
Guidance for full-year fiscal 2014 LDA revenues was lowered to a new range of between $4.02 and $4.12 billion. During the fiscal Q1 conference call, Sullivan had said 2014 revenues were projected to be in the range of $4.03 billion and $4.13 billion.
Revenues from the company's largest segment, Electronics Measurement, slid to $743 million from $760 million. Orders in the segment increased to $782 million from $701 million.
Officials said on the call that the Electronics Measurement business remains on track to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Agilent to be called Keysight Technologies. The separation of Keysight from Agilent is expected to be completed by early November.
Agilent had a profit of $150 million, or $.45 per share for its fiscal Q2, compared to a profit of $166 million, or $.48 per share, a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, EPS was $.72, just short of the average Wall Street estimate of $.73.
The company reduced its R&D spending 3 percent year over year to $176 million from $181 million, but increased its SG&A spending 3 percent to $513 million from $497 million.
It ended the quarter with $2.95 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
Agilent guided to company-wide revenues in the range of between $1.74 billion and $1.76 billion for the fiscal third quarter. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to be between $.72 and $.74.
For full-year fiscal 2014, the company guided to revenues in the range of $6.90 billion to $7.10 billion. Non-GAAP EPS is anticipated to be between $2.96 and $3.16.
In Thursday morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Agilent were down 3 percent at $54.19.