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New York, U.S. | Xinhua | U.S. pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday trimmed its forecasts on sales and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in 2022 due to appreciation of the U.S. dollar, and suspended COVID-19 vaccine sales guidance due to a global supply surplus and demand uncertainty.
Johnson & Johnson expects to report 94.8 billion to 95.8 billion U.S. dollars of sales in 2022, lower than a projection of 95.9 billion to 96.9 billion dollars made in January.
The company also lowered its forecast of yearly adjusted EPS in 2022 to the range of 10.15 to 10.35 dollars from an earlier estimate of 10.4 to 10.6 dollars.
The downward adjustment means year-on-year growth of adjusted EPS would slow to 3.6 percent to 5.6 percent from an earlier forecast of 6.2 percent to 8.2 percent.
The cut of forecasts on sales and adjusted EPS resulted from appreciation of the U.S. dollar as Johnson & Johnson has over 50 percent of its revenues from overseas markets, according to Joe Wolk, the company’s chief financial officer.
“What we’ve seen in the first quarter is just really almost an unprecedented move in terms of the strengthening of the dollar,” said Wolk.
Johnson & Johnson also suspended guidance on its COVID-19 vaccine sales, with COVID-19 vaccines sales excluded in its latest forecasts.
It’s too ambiguous to give guidance on COVID-19 vaccine sales going forward given the global supply surplus as well as vaccine hesitancy in the developing world, according to Wolk.
The COVID-19 vaccine is not for profit and it doesn’t impact the profitability of Johnson & Johnson, according to Wolk.
The company posted 23.42 billion dollars of revenues in the first quarter this year, up 5 percent year on year but lower than market estimate of 23.6 billion dollars.
The pharmaceutical company had 2.67 dollars of adjusted EPS in the first quarter, higher than market estimate of 2.58 dollars, and 2.59 U.S. dollars in the same period of 2021.
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Xinhua
