Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) eked out a 1-penny win over the consensus earnings estimate on Wall Street for its fiscal 1st-quarter earnings, reporting modest single-digit sales growth that also came in slightly ahead of the forecast.

Fridley, Minn.-based Medtronic reported profits of $871 million, or 87¢ per share, on sales of $4.27 billion for the 3 months ended July 25. That’s an -8.6% profit decline on sales growth of 4.7%

But adjusted to exclude 1-time items including restructuring costs and acquisition expenses, earnings per share were 93¢, ahead of the 93¢ estimate on The Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $4.25 billion.

"Our 1st-quarter results are a solid start to fiscal year 2015," chairman & CEO Omar Ishrak. "Our growth was broad-based across businesses and geographies. I was especially pleased that our innovation pipeline is delivering strong results, particularly in the U.S., which had its highest revenue growth performance in 5 years."

Medtronic said it expects to report adjusted EPS of $4.00 to $4.10 on constant-currency sales growth of 3%-5%.

"We are confident that our strategies – therapy innovation, globalization, and economic value – will further strengthen, diversify, and expand our market-leading competitive position," Ishrak said. "We believe we can accelerate these strategies with the Covidien acquisition, which we are fully committed to completing in the calendar fourth quarter of 2014 or early 2015."