Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A) stock fell 2.91% (As on August 16, 11:32:25 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company cut annual profit and sales forecasts for a second straight quarter as demand stays soft in major market China due to a slow economic recovery. Sales from its third-largest segment that offers genetic sequencing, contract manufacturing, research and development, among others, were $349 million, missing a Refinitiv estimate of $355.67 million. The sales miss was due to softness in genomics and the shutdown of its Resolution Bioscience business, which offered next-generation sequencing-based cancer diagnostics solutions. The company said that it has taken a $291 million pre-tax charge in the quarter associated with the shutdown and expects the wind-down to continue through the fourth quarter and into early fiscal 2024. Further, in July, the company saw a further (sales) deterioration in China, resulting in the 17% decline for the quarter. While the Q3 decline in China was centered in pharma, which was down 30%, the company did see weakness in other end markets as well. The company expects the conditions that was seen in July to persist in China for Q4. Non-GAAP net income of $422 million with EPS of $1.43, up 7% from the third quarter of 2022.
Moreover, Agilent’s Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group (LSAG) reported third-quarter revenue of $927 million, a year-over-year decrease of 9% (down 9% on a core basis). LSAG’s operating margin for the quarter was 29.9%. The Agilent CrossLab Group (ACG) reported third-quarter revenue of $396 million, a year-over-year increase of 10% (up 11% on a core basis). ACG’s operating margin for the quarter was 32.7%.
A in the third quarter of FY 23 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.43, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $1.36. The company had reported 2.7 percent decline in the adjusted revenue growth to $1.67 billion in the third quarter of FY 23, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $1.66 billion.
Agilent expects full-year revenue to be between $6.80 billion and $6.85 billion, compared with $6.93 billion to $7.03 billion projected earlier, which falls short of the $6.97 billion analyst consensus.
It expects annual adjusted profit per share between $5.40 and $5.43, compared with its prior forecast of $5.60 to $5.65, which falls short of the $5.50 billion analyst consensus.