Intuitive Surgical Inc. blew analyst’s expectations out of the water, and perhaps gave hope that the capital equipment drought might be easing a bit, as the company posted a 22 percent jump in profits last quarter.
The Sunnyvale, Calif. maker of the da Vinci surgical system reported
stronger than expected sales of the company’s robotic surgical device during the three-month period ended on June 30.
Intuitive posted a $62.3 million profit on about $260 million in sales. Analysts had predicted around $48 million profit on between $220 million to $230 million in revenues. And while officials at the company said about $14 million of those revenues were actually deferred from the first quarter, the company still handily beat expectations, as well as last year’s numbers.
During the same period last year, Intuitive posted a $51 million profit on $220 million in sales.
As reported by MassDevice some on Wall Street have been looking at Intuitive as a sort of barometer for the capital equipment market, which has been painfully slow in the midst of stalled credit markets and massive budget shortfalls in the U.S. hospital industry.
The slowdown has had a profound effect on the bottom line of many medical device companies, including Stryker Corp., which yesterday
said its surgical equipment division had experienced an 11 percent drop in Q2.
It appears that slowdown didn’t hurt sales of the da Vinci system, which costs on average about $1.5 million a piece. Overall, Intuitive said the company sold 76 da Vinci systems, about 47 of which were the company’s newer and more expensive “Si” models. And while the number of total systems sold was down from the 85 units the company unloaded during the same period a year ago, the company handily beat the 66 units it placed in Q1.