Boston, MA 01/22/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) delivered an otherwise stronger Q4 result when Wall Street was expecting a weaker performance in the quarter. The world’s second-largest oil field services company noted a net profit growth of 19 percent, thanks largely to the better than expected international business.
Following this encouraging performance, shares of Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) rose by almost 2 percent in the premarket trading on Tuesday.
The company earned $793 million, translating to $0.93 per share for the three months trading period ending December 31. During the same period last year, the company earned $669 million, translating to $0.72 per share. On their part, analysts expected earnings to come in at $0.89 per share for the quarter.
As for the revenue, Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) noted increase of 5 percent to $7.64 billion. Analysts had expected that the company would realize $7.55 billion in revenue for the quarter. The best of this Q4 was contributed by operations in MEA, Asia and Europe. This enabled the company to offset the market lag at home.
But even the troubled North America market showed slight improvements with revenue climbing 2 percent compared to the previous year. However, sequentially, revenue dipped 1 percent. The company explained that seasonal activity disruptions such as holidays and weather were to blame for the sequential dip.
Poor market in North America
Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL)’s more than half total revenue comes from North America operations. This means that trouble in this market hurts it to the core. The U.S. market slump has curtailed new drilling and stifling orders for Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL). Moreover, there is growing competition in the pressure-pumping services which is hurting margins for the company.
Its rival Schlumberger had a better fourth quarter, rising 22 percent in profit, due to the fact that it is well diversified and it only looks to North American for just one-third of its revenue, unlike Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) that looks to the market for half of its total revenue.
Full-year results
Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) earned $2.13 billion, translating to $2.36 per share in fiscal 2013. This compares to $2.64 billion or $2.84 per share in fiscal 2012. Revenue in 2013 climbed to $29.4 billion, against $28.5 billion in the prior year.
