By Maria Rugamer and Orest Dovhan
Feb 5 (Reuters) – Siemens Healthineers posted mixed first‑quarter results on Thursday, beating profit expectations but missing on revenue, as currency headwinds and weakness in China’s diagnostics market weighed on sales.
The results suggest the German medical technology group is leaning ever harder on its high‑margin imaging and cancer‑care franchises to outrun three mounting concerns: a stronger euro, fresh U.S. tariffs and a structural price reset in China’s diagnostics market.
Healthineers’ adjusted earnings before interest and taxes fell 1.5% to 809 million euros ($953 million) in the October-December quarter, while analysts polled by Vara were expecting 784 million euros on average.
Revenue fell 1.5% to 5.4 billion euros, around 50 million euros below market consensus, as a structural market change in China weighed on the diagnostics business. Without a hit from exchange rates and portfolio effects, it would have grown 3.8%.
Healthineers confirmed its full‑year outlook for higher comparable revenue and adjusted earnings per share.
The company’s Berlin-listed shares were down around 2% by 1000 GMT.
STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS IN CHINA PERSISTS
China remained a material drag in the first quarter, driven almost entirely by diagnostics. Revenue in China fell 4.8% on a comparable basis, or 11% as reported on the year.
Volume‑based public procurement and lower reimbursement rates pushed prices down in the Chinese lab market, eroding both sales and margins, even as imaging and therapy businesses elsewhere continued to grow.
Healthineers said China’s policy change has created a “new baseline” for pricing in diagnostics.
It warned diagnostics sales in China would fall again in the second quarter, before year-ago comparisons ease in the second half of its fiscal year.
LARGE U.S. EXPOSURE LEADS TO CURRENCY, TARIFF HITS
With much of its growth coming from dollar markets but a cost base still largely in euros, Healthineers remains more exposed to currency swings and tariffs than peers with more localised manufacturing.
The U.S. is the group’s largest market, making up around 40% of revenue.
It expects tariff effects, which finance chief Jochen Schmitz said were “a temporary burden” on margins, to be roughly 0.15 euros per share for the full year. It aims to fully mitigate this impact within three years.
($1 = 0.8486 euros)
(Reporting by Maria Rugamer and Orest Dovhan in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
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