Boston, MA 10/22/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Even though Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) beat expectations in its Monday, October 21, reporting, this did not come as a major surprise. Reason being that when its rivals reported their earnings last Friday they kind of slipped into the larger-than-expected territory, thus raising the bar for HAL. Perhaps this explains why the company’s shares suffered in Monday’s trading.
The positive rally for HAL in the Q3.13 posting can be traced to the buoyant activities that the company witnessed in Angola, Russia and Saudi Arabia during the quarter ending September 30. The oilfield services company has now reported profit jump of 17%. But its competitors Baker Hughes Inc. and Schlumberger Ltd did better than this.
In the just reported quarter, HAL demonstrated spirited efforts to grab opportunities beyond its traditional dominant markets in what analysts saw as attempts to take on rivals. HAL is the world’s second-largest company in oilfields services industry.
From its seasonal end-year software and equipment sales, HAL expects even better earnings in Q4.13, more so from its Eastern Hemisphere. This region is actually billed as the company’s strongest fourth quarter earner. After all, this is a region that it has always shown a lead for its peers. These positive sentiments where echoed by the company’s CEO Dave Lesar.
While international expansion is clearly promising for this oilfield services giant, it has come at some huge cost, something in the region of $1 billion which went to technology centers and new facilities in Houston, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Singapore.
Now, in figures, HAL reported net profit of $706 million, representing $0.79 per share. This is against the previous year’s $602 million net profit, equivalent of $65 per share. The revenue went up in the quarter by 5% to hit $7.47 billion.
Without the company’s restructuring charges, it earned $0.83 per share, being slightly above the analysts’ forecast.
