Waters 2014: Global growth led by generic drugmakers in India
While Waters makes instruments across a broad range of industries, demand from the pharma and biopharma industry led to end of year sales to increase 4% to just under $2bn (€1.8bn), compared to 2013.
This “broad-based pharmaceutical demand and solid recurring revenue growth,” as put by CEO Douglas Berthiaume, was broken down further with the firm seeing strength in liquid chromatography and Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) instrumentation, and overall pharma sales rose 14%, year-on-year.
Jefferies’ analyst Brandon Couillard said in a note that “Pharma was exceptional” while Evercore ISI analyst Ross Muken noted: “Improved core performance continued for Waters in the fourth quarter, with strength in consumables and Waters division instrumentation more than offsetting softness in TA [thermal analysis instruments],”
The TA division reported a 5% decline in sales for the year due to weak China sales and a slower industrial/chemical climate.
Muken added the firm had benefitted across all geographies, with US sales up 12%, and Europe 10%.
“US benefited from continued strength in pharma and healthy government and academic demand,” he said, while “Europe continues to be solid despite macro headlines, with Waters outperforming expectations it had entering 2014.”
However, the firm also saw an impressive 20% growth in India, driven by sales of its equipment and consumables to generic manufacturers and according to the company it expects this to continue into 2015.
