3M falls shy of experts’ forecasts for earnings and revenue in Q2

3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) published its quarterly financial results on Tuesday that came in weaker than what the experts had forecast. The company attributed its dovish performance to the Coronavirus pandemic that weighed on its performance in the second quarter. 3M had previously reported an 11% decline in April sales due to the health crisis.

Shares of the company were reported 2.2% down in premarket trading on Tuesday. At £126.12 per share, 3M Co. is roughly 10% down year to date in the stock market after recovering from an even lower £91.48 per share in March. Learn more about the financial analysis of a company.

3M’s Q2 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

According to FactSet, analysts had expected the company to print £5.68 billion of sales in the second quarter. Their estimate for earnings per share (EPS) was capped at £1.40. In its report on Tuesday, 3M fell shy of both estimates posting a lower £5.57 billion of sales and £1.38 of earnings per share in Q2.

At £1.00 billion, the diversified manufacturer’s net income came in stronger than £880 million in the same quarter last year. On a year over year basis, its revenue and EPS was also down 12% and 16% respectively. 3M’s N95 crackdown has resulted so far in 18 lawsuits.

The company cited COVID-19 that has so far infected a little under 4.5 million people in the United States and caused over 150,000 thousand deaths as it refrained from giving its future financial guidance. 3M, however, expressed confidence that signs of recovery were evident in July sales.

Other prominent figures in 3M’s earnings report

Other prominent figures in 3M’s earnings report on Tuesday include a 9.2% slump in sales from safety and industrial segment to £2.10 billion and a 0.4% decline in sales from its healthcare business to £1.40 billion.

The company generated £1.47 billion of sales from transportation and electronics in the second quarter that represents a 20.9% decline on an annualised basis and a 6.2% plunge in consumer sales to £930 million was also registered in the recent quarter.

Sales figures for all but consumer segment came in weaker than FactSet consensus. The consumer business was in line with what was expected.

At the time of writing, the Saint Paul-based multinational conglomerate corporation has a market cap of £72.87 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 19.15.