Interim Report 2014 - full report

• In the first half-year, the Group realised a growth rate of 8% in local currencies, corresponding to revenue of DKK 4,539 million. The Group’s core business, wholesale of hearing aids, realised unit growth, clearly exceeding unit growth in the market. A continued roll-out of new products is planned for the third quarter.
• The period under review was characterised by a high level of spending and investments in relation to the establishment of a new distribution centre, the transfer of ITE production to Poland, the roll-out of global IT projects and the expansion of Oticon Medical, all of which will secure future growth and profitability for the Group.
• In the first half-year, Oticon Medical continued to deliver double-digit sales growth, both in bone-anchored hearing systems (BAHS) and in cochlear implants (CI). The feedback provided on our CI products at the recently held CI conference in Munich was very encouraging – strongly supported by an independent study, demonstrating in three out of four tests the superior performance of our Saphyr Neo speech processor compared to speech processors from our competitors.
• In addition to the adverse effects of current spending on operating profit (EBIT) in the first half-year, foreign exchange rates negatively impacted EBIT by DKK 60-70 million. EBIT reached DKK 834 million, and the EBIT margin was realised at 18.4%. Earnings per share (EPS) were realised at DKK 11.2, matching last year’s level.
• The expected continued strong cash flow generation combined with a limited pipeline of acquisition opportunities leaves room for channelling the Group’s substantial excess cash flow back to the shareholders going forward. Therefore, we plan to buy back Company shares worth a total of DKK 2.5-3.0 billion in the period 2014-2016 of which amount we have year-to-date already bought back shares worth DKK 493 million.
• We maintain our full-year outlook for 2014, including our expectation to generate growth in both our business activities and to deliver a rise in earnings per share of 5-10%. Acquisitions are expected to contribute by 3-4% to Group revenue in 2014, even though we expect more than half of this impact to be offset by the Group’s weakened invoicing currencies.

Vedhæftede filer:Interim Report 2014.pdf