CellaVision AB: Interim report January-March 2016

Strong first quarter with good growth and high operating margin

January 1-March 31, 2015 
Net sales increased by 12 % to SEK 58.3 million (51.8).
Operating profit was SEK 13.9 million (10.5).
The operating margin was 23.9 % (20.2).
Profit before tax was SEK 14.2 million (10.8).
Earnings per share were SEK 0.42 (0.34)

Significant events after the first quarter
There are no significant post quarter events to report.

CEO's comments
CellaVision's sales growth was sound in the first quarter of 2016. Sales were SEK 58.3 million, equivalent to growth of 12 percent. As in the first quarter of 2015, sales consist exclusively of analyzers for the human healthcare market. The quarter is our strongest first quarter ever and the favorable sales trend means that operating profit improved by 32 percent to SEK 13.9 million. The operating margin was 23.9 (20.2) percent. Currency exchange rates impacted sales by four percent in the quarter.

CellaVision's two largest markets, the Americas and EMEA, showed positive growth in the year's first quarter, and it is particularly gratifying to be able to note that the Americas market has returned to growth after a weaker period. Sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 27.6 million, equivalent to growth of six percent. 

We saw even stronger growth in EMEA, where sales increased by as much as 32 percent to SEK 25.6 million.

Sales in APAC are becoming established and are still progressing from relatively low levels. In the first quarter of 2016 sales decreased somewhat to SEK 5.1 million. Our assessment is that the decrease is of a temporary nature and we expect a good first half year in the region.

During the quarter CellaVision continued to work on activities targeting leading laboratory chains in veterinary medicine. Through the product launches implemented in 2015 we strengthened our offer to the veterinary market and we continue to see positive opportunities to achieve good sales over time in this market. However, the veterinary market is in an early phase of development, which means that it is difficult to assess the pace of its development.

CellaVision will steadily become established in new markets in future, in accordance with our offensive geographical expansion strategy to ensure that we are involved in driving the transition from manual microscopy to digital blood analysis. As part of this strategy we opened a regional office in Dubai in the quarter. The focus of the new organization is the fast-growing healthcare market in the Middle East and surrounding geographical areas, which are new markets for
CellaVision. There are about 800 hospitals in the region, many of which are premium hospitals. These are particularly interesting to us. We have also started work on establishing a market support organization in Korea, which we believe is a market with great potential for CellaVision. 

Development of the new technology platform for small and mid-sized human and veterinary laboratories continued according to plan during the quarter. Launch of the new products is expected to be in the first quarter of 2018.