First-quarter revenues for the IBO Lab Equipment/Consumables Index grew 10.5% to $887.72 million. Operating profits improved 14.8% to $265.8 million, and operating margin climbed 110 basis points to 29.9% of sales. Favorable currency transactions continued to increase revenue growth for a majority of companies in the Index. However, despite positive results from businesses, such as […]

The analytical and life science instrument industry has made impressive gains in productivity, as measured by sales per employee, in recent years due the greater use of lean manufacturing programs, enterprise resource planning systems, as well as outsourcing and offshoring. At the same time, companies continue to invest in sales and marketing to drive market […]

Shimadzu is Japan’s largest analytical instrument maker and the world’s sixth largest analytical instrument company (see IBO 4/15/08). On May 29, Shimadzu President and CEO Shigehiko Hattori presented the company’s financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31 (fiscal 2007). He noted the adverse effects of a stronger yen on company sales growth and […]

In the second multibillion dollar deal in the analytical instrument industry in less than two years, Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems announced on June 12 a $6.7 billion merger agreement (see page 2). The merger will create the industry’s largest company and the dominant supplier for life science research. The deal brings together the industry’s largest […]

This issue, IBO has made a couple of changes to its Life Science Sales Index. Beckman Coulter’s Life Science division, which includes the company’s centrifugation, life science automation and capillary electrophoresis-based systems, and Illumina were added to the Index. First-quarter 2008 Life Science Index sales grew 8.9% to $2,195 million compared to 9.7% growth in […]

Despite new economic data, investors appear to be increasingly mystified as to the actual condition of the economy. On May 20, the Federal Reserve lowered its 2008 growth forecast to 0.3%–1.2% from 1.3%–2.0%, citing inflation and unemployment concerns. Coupled with record-high crude oil prices of $135 a barrel and renewed liquidity concerns in the financial […]

In the face of slower spending by big pharma, weaker semiconductor spending and economic turmoil, calendar-year first-quarter revenues for major instrument and laboratory product companies stayed on track. First-quarter sales for 11 of the 13 companies profiled on pages 9–11 increased 11.8% in US dollars (see graph, page 10) (Affymetrix was excluded from the calculation […]

Despite economic upheaval and cost concerns, instrument and laboratory product company executives are optimistic about future sales growth, according to the latest IBO Business Climate Survey, which was conducted this month. Fifty-nine percent of the 22 executives surveyed by IBO expected that instrument sales industry wide would “increase moderately” in the next six months. This […]