NEW YORK – Bruker reported after the close of the market Monday that revenues in the third quarter fell 2 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, revenues decreased to $511.4 million from $521.1million in Q3 2019, beating the consensus Wall Street estimate of $483.7 million.
The company saw a 2 percent positive effect on revenues from currency translation and a positive effect of less than 1 percent from acquisitions.
On a conference call following the release of the financial results, Bruker President and CEO Frank Laukien said that while the company was still seeing negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among its applied and industrial customers, it saw strong performance from its biopharma, diagnostics, and proteomics businesses.
Laukien added that Bruker's academic business somewhat recovered during the quarter, with strength in European academic markets and relative weakness in the US academic market. He said the company anticipated returning to overall revenue growth in 2021.
The company's CALID group, which houses its life sciences mass spectrometry business, posted 8 percent growth in the quarter with revenues of 171.3 million compared to 158.2 million the year before.
Laukien said that Bruker's timsTOF mass spec platform saw solid sales growth despite the pandemic, with orders and booking year-to-date growing in double digits.
The CALID division also generated $8.5 million in revenues from SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing during the quarter, with most of those sales coming from Europe, Laukien said.
Revenues for Bruker BioSpin increased 6 percent to $152.1 million from $143.7 million a year ago, Bruker Nano revenues declined 13 percent to $147.1 million from $169.9 million, and Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) revenues fell 17 percent to $43.8 million from $52.5 million.
The Billerica, Massachusetts-based company reported a profit of $54.3 million, or $.35 per share, in Q3 compared to a profit of $61.3 million, or $.39 per share, a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, Bruker had EPS of $.42, well above the consensus Wall Street estimate of $.31.
Bruker's R&D costs were $48.3 million for the quarter, up 2 percent from $46.1 million in Q3 2019. Its SG&A spending was $114.6 million, down 9 percent from $125.3 million in the year-ago quarter.
Bruker ended the quarter with $617.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
The company said its guidance for 2020 remains suspended, adding that it expects the pandemic and related economic slowdown will continue to have a negative impact in Q4. Bruker CFO Gerald Herman said the company anticipates a year-over-year revenue decline between 2 percent and 6 percent in Q4 2020.
In Tuesday morning trading on Nasdaq, Bruker's stock was down 3 percent to $42.70.