J&J Beats By Three Cents

Good news for Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ). The company reported Q3 earnings this morning of $1.24 per share which was three cents more than Wall Street’s consensus.

I said in the most recent CWS Market Review that I thought JNJ could deliver earnings of $1.25 per share, so I was off by one penny.

For the first three quarters of 2011, the company has already earned $3.87 per share. I also said last week that JNJ could raise each end of its quarterly guidance by five cents per share (it was at $4.90 to $5 per share). Again I was close — they raised the low end to $4.95 per share.

The WSJ has the 411:

Sales rose 6.8% to $16 billion, just short of the Thomson estimate of $16.02 billion. Favorable currency rates contributed 4.2 percentage points of the growth. U.S. sales dropped 3.7%, while non-U.S. sales rose 16.4%.

J&J’s biggest unit, medical devices and diagnostics, had sales of $6.3 billion, up 6% from a year earlier. Sales growth was helped by products for diabetes care, joint-replacement parts and surgical products. The cardiovascular care division continued to post sales decline due to diminished sales of drug-coated stent devices, a business J&J has decided to exit.

J&J expects to close its planned acquisition of Synthes in the first half of 2012, Mr. Caruso said.

J&J’s pharmaceutical unit sales increased 9% to $5.98 billion, with Remicade gaining 15%, HIV drug Prezista up 37% and cancer drug Velcade up 20%.

Sales of antibiotic Levaquin plunged 91% due to generic competition. U.S. sales of cancer drug Doxil dropped 87% due to a shortage caused by production problems at a contract manufacturer.

J&J’s consumer unit sales rose 5% to $3.74 billion, helped by baby-care, skin-care and oral-care products. Combined sales of over-the-counter medicines and nutritional products in the U.S. dropped 24% due to a series of recalls of OTC medicines stemming from manufacturing-quality lapses.

J&J said it expects to ship a limited supply of certain recalled OTC products later this year, and to reintroduce products throughout 2012.

The shares are down slightly so far but the stock currently yields close to 3.6%.

Posted by on October 18th, 2011 at 11:00 am


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