A Agilent Technologies

   By Ezequiel Minaya 
 

Agilent Technologies Inc. lowered its annual revenue and profit guidance Wednesday even as it logged stronger-than-expected adjusted earnings for its latest quarter, propelled by sales growth in two out of three business segments.

Sales in Agilent's life sciences and applied markets group--its largest division--declined 1% year-over-year, while the crosslab segment climbed 7% and the diagnostics and genomics group rose 8%.

"Despite currency headwinds, revenue came in above the midpoint of guidance, and earnings per share exceeded our guidance range," said Mike McMullen, CEO of Agilent, of the three-month period ended July 31.

But shares of the company slipped 5.7% after hours to $45.68 as Agilent said it now expects annual revenue between $4.14 billion and $4.16 billion, down from a previous range of $4.16 billion to $4.18 billion. At the same time, Agilent narrowed guidance for adjusted earnings on a per-share basis, lowering the top end by a penny to $1.89 to $1.91 from a previous range of between $1.88 and $1.92.

The outlook for the current fiscal fourth quarter also disappointed Wall Street with the company expecting revenue between $1.05 billion and $1.07 billion and adjusted earnings between 50 cents and 52 cents. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of 54 cents on $1.09 billion in revenue.

Over all, for the completed third quarter, Agilent reported a profit of $124 million, or 38 cents a share, up from $111 million, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding certain items, per-share earnings rose to 49 cents from 44 cents.

Revenue rose 3% to $1.04 billion.

For the latest quarter, Agilent expected revenue between $1.03 billion and $1.05 billion with adjusted earnings on a per-share basis in the range of 45 cents to 47 cents. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 47 cents a share on revenue of $1.05 billion.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at Ezequiel.Minaya@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 17, 2016 17:08 ET (21:08 GMT)

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