NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Bruker reported after the close of the market Thursday that its revenues in the first quarter were down 3 percent year over year, dropping to $393.4 million, compared to $405.6 million in Q1 2012.
The results fell short of the average Wall Street estimate of $417.0 million. Foreign currency effects were responsible for roughly half of that decline, the company said, with acquisitions and divestitures responsible for an additional net negative effect of a fraction of 1 percent.
"Weakness in the semiconductor and data storage industries, and temporary operational issues" also contributed to the drop, Bruker President and CEO Frank Laukien said in a statement.
Laukien also noted on a conference call following the release of the results that the company's Life Sciences Daltonics division experienced "order execution challenges" in the quarter.
The division "faced operational issues, primarily resulting from the impact of new systems and business processes and organizational changes," Laukien said, noting that it moved "most of its manufacturing operations onto SAP in the middle of the first quarter."
He added that the division "is experiencing a number of organizational changes, especially in Asia, that contributed to revenues slipping in the first quarter." The company is "working diligently to fix these problems, and we should start to see improvement in the remaining quarters of 2013," Laukien said.
The Billerica, Mass.-based company reported a profit of $5.4 million, or $0.03 per share, compared to $15.1 million, or $0.09 per share, a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, Bruker had EPS of $0.08, well short of the consensus Wall Street estimate of $.15.
Bruker's Scientific Instruments segment posted an organic revenue decline of 1 percent year over year, while its Energy and Superconducting Technologies segment saw organic revenues grow 3 percent.
The company's R&D costs were $49.4 million for the quarter, up about 3 percent from $48.2 million in Q1 2012. Its SG&A spending was $106.8 million, up 2 percent from $104.4 million in the year-ago first quarter.
Bruker ended the quarter with $269.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.
The company said that, largely due to currency effects and the weakness of the Japanese Yen in particular, it is lowering its full-year 2013 guidance. It now expects revenue growth of 2 percent to 3 percent and non-GAAP EPS of between $0.80 and $0.83, a reduction of $0.08 from its previous guidance.
In Friday morning trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Bruker were down 4 percent at $16.72.