Johnson & Johnson reported a 7.4% fall in quarterly sales as the impact of a strong dollar more than offset higher sales of its older drugs such as Invega line of products for schizophrenia and ADHD treatment Concerta, according to Reuters.
Revenue fell to $17.10 billion (11 billion pounds) in the third quarter from $18.47 billion a year earlier.
International sales fell nearly 14 pct to $8.31 billion in the quarter, including a currency impact of 15.8 %, the company said. The company receives nearly half of its revenue from outside the United States.
Net profit fell to $3.36 billion, or $1.20 per share, from $4.75 billion, or $1.66 per share, a year earlier.
The company said its adjusted profit was $1.49 per share.
Analysts on average had expected the Band-aid maker to earn $1.45 per share on revenue of $17.45 billion.
The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company also said it planned to buy back up to $10 billion worth shares.
The company said it had about 2.77 billion shares of common stock outstanding as of Sept. 27, valuing the company at $251.82 billion.
The repurchase would take away nearly 104 million shares of the company’s outstanding shares, according to Thomson Reuters calculations. The company had already bought back $5 billion of shares in a program it announced in July last year.
The company’s shares rose 1.3% after the buyback announcement but pared some of the gains to trade near its Monday close of $95.80 in premarket trading.
