Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE: A) stock lost over 3.7% in the pre-market session of 19th August, 2020 (as of 8:21 am GMT-4 ; Source: Google finance) after the company posted mixed results for the third quarter of FY 20. Agilent has reported net income of $199 million, compared to net income of $191 million, in the year-ago quarter. Further, as the company planned to more than double oligo manufacturing capacity and the new Frederick, Colorado site. The expansion helps the company to meet significantly increasing customer demand. The company is growing double-digit and anticipates to continue this rate of growth in the coming years. During the third quarter, the company’s PD-L1 assay was approved by the FDA for expanded use of non-small cell lung cancer.
Meanwhile, China led the way for the company and exceeded A’s expectations with revenues growth of 11%. China’s growth in the third quarter is broad-based across all end market and for all business groups. While improving the rate of recovery in Europe, and the Americas lags China, due to the pandemic, European revenues had fallen by 5%. Americas market conditions trailed both China and Europe with revenues falling by 10%. However, as the company exited the quarter, the company is seeing signs of improvement in service activity, consumables and diagnostic testing volumes. On a total Company basis, the company exited July with decent growth across all major markets.
A in the third quarter of FY 20 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of 64 cents, missing the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of 66 cents, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. The company had reported 1 percent fall in the adjusted revenue to $1.26 billion in the third quarter of FY 20, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $1.21 billion. On a core basis, revenues have fallen by 3%.
Moreover, the company’s Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group segment posted growth of 2% on a reported basis and declined 4%. The company’s CrossLab Group revenues posted growth of 1%. Increase in customer activity has driven rise in sales of consumables and an uptake of on-demand services. The CrossLab team continues to win large, multiyear contracts for enterprise laboratory management. Diagnostics and Genomics Group segment revenues fell by 8%. While the overall pathology and genomics businesses are down for the third quarter, the company is seeing gradual improvement in diagnostic testing volumes and non-COVID-19 lab openings. Partially offsetting this, the nucleic acid solution business delivered another solid quarter, posted growth of almost 25%.