Home appliances maker Electrolux (OMX: ELUX B, PINK: ELUXY) reported net sales of almost 25.9 billion Swedish kronor for first quarter of 2012. This represented 10.6% growth, one third of which was organic. The remainder can mainly be attributed to CTI and Olympic Group acquisition. Profit for the period was 559 million or 1.96 SEK per share. As tends to be the case in Q1, cash flow for the period was negative, but considerably less so than last year.
Higher sales prices in North America affected profit numbers positively. The feeling in the company is that the U.S. housing market may have bottomed. Market share gains were made in built-in-segment in Europe. On the other hand, higher raw material costs hurt. There are nearly 3000 claims pending against the company in the United States related to asbestos
Improved product mix and price hikes should help going forward but some launches will also be costly. Overall the result was better than what the markets had been calculating. The share finished the day with a 6.5% gain.
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