Abbott (NYSE:ABT) shares dipped slightly despite fourth-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
The Abbott Park, Illinois-based company posted profits of nearly $2 billion, or $1.11 per share, on sales of $11.5 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2021, for an 8% bottom-line slide on sales growth of 7.2%.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $1.32, 11¢ ahead of Wall Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $10.7 billion.
The company’s diagnostics business, led by its BinaxNow rapid COVID-19 test, brought in the most revenue out of Abbott’s arms, with nearly $4.5 billion in sales. Medical devices saw massive year-over-year growth, rising 15.1% in revenues to more than $3.7 billion.
“2021 was an outstanding year for Abbott,” Abbott Chairman and CEO Robert B. Ford said in a news release. “We achieved more than 40 percent EPS growth, exceeding the baseline EPS guidance we set at the beginning of last year and, importantly, continued to advance our new product pipeline across the portfolio.”
Abbott said it now expects to log adjusted EPS of at least $4.70 for the full 2022 year. The company’s guidance includes an initial COVID-19 testing-related sales forecast of $2.5 billion, which it expects to occur early in the year.
ABT shares were down 2.7% at $119.93 per share in early-morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up 0.4%.