Boston, MA 10/16/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Third-quarter results of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) have beaten expectations. Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday declared that it had clocked about $2.98 billion in net earnings or $1.04 per share for the third quarter as compared to $2.97 billion or $1.05 per share a year ago. JOHNSON & JOHNSON’s per-share earnings estimates have now risen from $5.40 to $5.45 to $5.44 to $5.49 for the year up from its earlier projection of $5.40 to $5.47. JOHNSON & JOHNSON’s per-share earnings stood at $5.10 in FY2012. Global revenues jumped to $7.04 billion, a rise of almost 10%.The company was able to clock the revenues on the back of new drug launches. Johnson and Johnson is also not facing any patent expiration in the near future.
JOHNSON & JOHNSON’s shares have gained almost 30% for the year to date, compared to a 17% gain for the ARCA Pharmaceutical Index of large U.S. and European drugmakers. Sales of the diversified healthcare company’s consumer products have risen to $3.61 billion, up by 0.8%, largely contributed by over-the-counter medicines. Net JOHNSON & JOHNSON sales have also gone up by 3.1% to $17.58 billion in the same quarter, again exceeding expectations of about $17.46 billion.
Analysts consider Johnson & Johnson to be one of the best performers in the health care industry. Though sales of its medical devices seem to be declining, its global drug revenue has stepped up almost 10% to $7.04 billion; a performance repetitive to JOHNSON & JOHNSON’s first and second quarter performances. The higher sales revenue is being attributed to new drug launches and trade experts expect this to get even better in the near future.
Johnson & Johnson Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso attributes the performance to the economic conditions. Caruso also revealed the pharmaceutical major’s interest to acquire or license new prescription as well as other drugs to sustain the further growth of its top-performing business.
The shares were trading at $89.93 at the end of trading on October 15, 2013.
