Healthcare in vitro diagnostics company QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ: QDEL) attracted the right kind of attention from investors after posting its latest quarterly earnings report on Thursday. A rather encouraged market traded the company's shares up by more than 4% in response. That was more than good enough to top the S&P 500 index's slightly over 1% increase.
Narrower-than-expected declines
QuidelOrtho's fourth-quarter and full-year results, unveiled after market close on Wednesday, showed that the company earned $708 million in revenue. Although that was down by almost 5% on a year-over-year basis, it topped the average analyst estimate of slightly more than $698 million.
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Non-GAAP (adjusted) net income also fell, tumbling to $42.6 million ($0.63 per share) from the $78.6 million of Q4 2023. Again, though, the result was good enough to beat the consensus pundit projection, in this case $0.58 per share.
QuidelOrtho chalked up the declines largely to an 18% fall in its revenue for respiratory diagnostic products. This was due to the sharp fall of its Covid-related business now that the pandemic is largely in the past, and a decline in influenza testing.
Guiding for profitability growth
Management issued full-year guidance in its earnings release, writing that it expects to earn $2.60 billion to $2.81 billion in revenue. Adjusted net income should hit $2.07 to $2.57 per share. Those figures for 2024 were $2.78 billion and $1.85, respectively.
Everyone expected QuidelOrtho to post weaker top- and bottom-line numbers due to the worst of Covid receding into the past. What they didn't expect was this tempo of recovery, with both metrics coming in notably higher than analyst projections. Going by the company's guidance, that recovery should continue to snowball, so the stock is looking quite attractive just now.
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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends QuidelOrtho. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
