NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Bio-Rad reported after the close of the market on Thursday a 6 percent drop in second quarter revenues attributed to currency headwinds..
For the quarter ended June 30, the Hercules, California-based firm reported revenues of $506.1 million, down from $536.8 million in Q2 2014, but ahead of the consensus analyst estimate of $494.9 million.
On a currency-neutral basis, quarterly revenues increased 4 percent year over year.
"The difference in growth rate represents a currency headwind to reported sales of more than $53 million dollars for the quarter," CFO Christine Tsingos said during a conference call recapping the company's earnings.
Bio-Rad's Life Science segment logged net sales of $170.6 million compared to $170.3 million in the year-ago period. On a currency-neutral basis, Life Science segment sales increased 9 percent versus the same quarter last year.
"These quarterly results reflect strong growth in both real-time and digital PCR products as well as our cell biology products," Tsingos noted.
Revenues for Bio-Rad's Clinical Diagnostics division were $332.1 million, down 9 percent from $362.9 million in Q2 2014. On a currency-neutral basis, net sales for this segment increased 2 percent.
In Q2 Bio-Rad posted net income of $28.4 million, or $0.97 per share, compared to $31.6 million, or $1.09 per share, in the year-ago period. On average, Wall Street had expected EPS of $0.78 per share.
The lower year-over-year net income for the second quarter was primarily driven by currency impacts; an increase of $2.6 million of bad debt expense; a distributor termination expense of $1.9 million; and a $1.7 million revaluation of certain acquisitions.
For Q2, Bio-Rad spent $192.8 million on SG&A expenses, compared to $195.8 million in the same period last year. R&D expenses decreased about 16 percent to $46.5 million from $55.7 million in Q2 2014.
"The year-over-year decrease in R&D spend is a reflection of timing as well as the finalization of some major instrument products coming to market; specifically our new D-100 for [hemoglobin] A1c monitoring and the new IH-500 for the midrange blood typing market," Tsingos said.
Bio-Rad finished the quarter with $450 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $277.5 million in short-term investments.
"We are pleased with our year-to-date performance in a somewhat mixed geographic market environment, and today are maintaining the guidance given at the beginning of the year," Tsingos said.
That guidance included currency-neutral sales growth of around 3 percent. However, the company cautioned that strengthening of the US dollar could result in a top-line currency headwind of $175 million to $200 million, and consequently a decline in year-over-year reported sales.