Covidien (NYSE:COV) posted healthy growth during its fiscal 2nd quarter, beating Wall Street’s estimates and maintaining its guidance for the rest of the year.
The Mansfield, Mass.-based med-tech titan posted sales of $2.95 billion in the 3 months ended March 30, a 5% uptick from the same period last year.
Company profits rose 9.8% to $497 million, or $1.01 earned per diluted share, compared with $455 million, or 92¢ per share, in the 2nd quarter of 2011.
Excluding 1-time items, the company earned $1.05 per diluted share during the quarter, beating Wall Street by 2¢.
"Our 2nd-quarter performance was paced by good top-line growth, improvements in gross and operating margin and a double-digit increase in earnings per share," president & CEO Jose Almeida said in prepared remarks. "Once again, our largest business segment, medical devices, drove our strong performance, with broad-based growth that was led by double-digit advances in energy and vascular products."
The company’s medical-tech segment hit $2 billion for the quarter, "driven by new products and increased volume."
Sales increased for nearly every device unit, including endomechanical instruments, soft tissue repair and vascular products, which saw a 17% uptick to $390 million for the quarter.
Covidien also touted strong growth in European device sales, a market that had seen declines in last year’s reports.
U.S. med-tech sales rose 8% to $904 million and non-U.S. sales rose 6% to $1.1 billion.
"While economic conditions in Europe remain challenging and will continue to require close monitoring, our European sales growth accelerated for the 2nd quarter in a row," Almeida said. "The 2nd-quarter operational gain of 6% was the fastest growth we have seen in Europe in more than 2 years."
The news didn’t stir much affection from The Street, where shares COV shares were down 0.6% to $54.73 as of about 12 p.m. today.
