If people are looking for confirmation that the global cardiac rhythm management market has declined as much as it could and will fall no further, they have to wait a while.
A week ago St. Jude Medical CEO Dan Starks admitted that the company has been routinely too optimistic in predicting the bottom of the market. Acknowledging that he was likely being conservative in providing financial guidance, Starks noted that St. Jude Medical has not seen the bottom of the CRM market and cannot provide a definitive statement on when it will stabilize.
On Thursday, in discussing the company’s second-quarter results, Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) CEO Hank Kucheman essentially channeled his Minnesotan rival in describing the state of the global CRM market.
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“Consistent with one of our competitor’s recent comments, we believe that the worldwide CRM market will continue to be sluggish in 2012, declining approximately 3 to 5 percent for the full year on a constant currency basis,” Kucheman said. “While we expect that year-over-year comparisons will improve in the second half, we have not concluded that we have seen the bottom of the CRM market at this point.”
In the quarter ended June 30, Boston Scientific’s CRM revenue fell 10 percent to $488 million from $544 million in the same period a year ago. Overall the company, swung to a loss of $3.4 billion, or $2.39 per diluted share compared with a profit of $146 million, or 10 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. Stung by that $3.4 billion goodwill charge and decline in some businesses, revenue fell to $1.83 billion in the second quarter, from $1.98 billion in the comparable year-ago period.
Full results can be viewed here.
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