Both the top and bottom lines declined about -3% for GE Healthcare during the 2nd quarter, General Electric reported last week.
GE Healthcare posted profits of $705 million on $4.34 billion in sales for the 3 months ended June 30, down -3.3% and -3.4%, respectively.
The industrial conglomerate still managed to beat expectations with its overall earnings, despite a swing to red ink for the quarter. GE reported losses of -$1.36 billion, or -13¢ per share, on sales of $26.06 billion, down -0.2% compared with the same period last year.
Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, earnings were 31¢, 3¢ ahead of expectations on Wall Street.
For GE’s core industrial businesses, revenue was $26.9 billion, roughly unchanged from the year-ago quarter as 4 of 7 segments grew.
Sales of GE’s power and water unit, which sells a variety of power turbines, rose 8%, while its oil and gas segment saw sales drop 15%. Like other suppliers to the energy sector, GE is vulnerable to a sharp slide in oil prices as customers reduce capital expenditures.
Profit margins for the industrial businesses expanded to 16.2% from 15.5% a year ago, helped by cost cuts.
CFO Jeff Bornstein said GE Healthcare’s organic growth, excluding foreign exchange, were 3%.
“So the U.S. market continues to grow. Europe appears stable. We believe we continue to take share in most of the markets we operate in,” Bornstein said during a July 17 conference call with analysts. “China remains a challenge with slow tenders, but we do not think there’s an underlying demand problem.”
Although GE Healthcare’s China sales were off 9%, GE CEO Jeff Immelt said sales were up 12% during the 1st half of 2015.
Material from Reuters was used in this report.