Earnings preview: Medical devices to drive Abbott Q1 results

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) is scheduled to report its earnings results for the first quarter of 2019 on Wednesday before the market opens. The results could be benefited by the segments Medical Devices, Established Pharmaceuticals, and Diagnostics as well as Nutrition that are likely to yield a greater return for the quarter.

The company has been consistently investing in its research and development for bringing out a new product pipeline that could achieve high productive and strong growth trends for the first quarter. The diagnostic instruments Alinity and infectious disease testing could drive Diagnostics sales higher. The cardiac mapping, ablation catheters, Structural Heart and Diabetes Care could drive sales of Medical Devices higher.

Analysts expect Abbott’s earnings to increase by 3.40% to $0.61 per share and revenue to rise by 1.10% to $7.47 billion for the first quarter. In comparison, during the previous year quarter, the company reported a profit of $0.59 per share on revenue of $7.39 billion.

Investors remained confused whether Abbott will beat the analysts’ expectations as the company’s history suggested it exceeded two times in the last four quarters while coming in line for the balance.

For the fourth quarter, the company swung to a profit from a loss last year, driven by a decline in tax expense. Worldwide sales increased 2.3% on a reported basis and 6.4% on an organic basis, helped by higher sales from Medical Devices and Diagnostics businesses.

For the first quarter, Abbott had expected earnings from continuing operations in the range of $0.25 to $0.27 per share and adjusted earnings to be $0.60 to $0.62 per share range. For the full year 2019, the company had predicted organic sales growth of 6.5% to 7.5% and earnings from continuing operations in the range of $1.80 to $1.90 per share. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations were anticipated to be in the range of $3.15 to $3.25 per share for the full year.

Shares of Abbott opened higher on Tuesday and is trading in the green territory. The stock has risen over 32% in the past year and over 10% in the past three months.

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