Waters Corp. reports flat Q2 sales and 7.7% profit dip

Photo/Grant Welker Waters Corp.'s Milford headquarters

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By Zachary Comeau

The stock price of Milford manufacturer of lab equipment Waters Corp. opened Tuesday trading down slightly as it reported flat second-quarter sales.

Sales for the quarter were $599.1 million compared to $596.2 million from last year’s second quarter. For the first six months, sales were down slightly from last year’s $1.23 billion to $1.11 billion.

The quarter brought in $144.4 million in profits, a 7.7% decline from last year’s quarter.

Shares of the company’s stock on the Nasdaq opened at $211 after closing at $219 Monday, but quickly rebounded after opening to around $217 by mid-morning Tuesday.

The culprits for the flat performance in the quarter were declines in European sales and declines in industrial, academic and governmental sales, the company reported.

Net sales for the quarter came in at the low end of the company’s guidance, but Chairman and CEO Chris O’Connell pointed to the 8% growth in the U.S. and growth in China as positives for the quarter

“The progress we made in the second quarter is encouraging, and we remain focused on improving our performance in the back half of the year,” O’Connell said in a statement. “Stabilizing end markets, as well as our accelerating cadence of new product introductions, provide us with confidence that we will be able to achieve continued improvement over the course of the year.”