22nd January 2018 -IAM, News
Jean-Louis Richard, Senior Financial Analyst
The season of the annual results publication starts really this week. During the last days however, a handful of Swiss companies have offered a taste of what is to come, by publishing their revenues of the fourth quarter. In general growth accelerated and the trend looks promising for the beginning of 2018.
The sanitary producer Geberit showed a rather disappointing organic growth of +3.3% over nine months; the situation has improved during the fourth quarter with a rhythm of +5.3%. The speciality chemical company Sika published an impressive progression of its sales of +8.5% during the last quarter, compared to 5.5% during the first 9 months. Furthermore the company considers an expansion of its sales “of more than 10%” for the full 2018. This last number includes acquisitions.
The semi-conductor specialist Inficon has posted a growth of 18% (in dollars) during the fourth quarter, bringing sales to 373 million. The company had raised its forecast to 340 million in June and to 360 million in October. Richemont posted, at constant exchange rate, a better progression than expected of its sales, of 7% for the period October to December. This is less than the 10% achieved during 9 months. But, in the strategic segments of watches, growth of sales to final customers seems to have exceeded 10%, which supports the recovery scenario in the watch industry.
