Medical giant Smith & Nephew raised its full-year revenue growth targets for a second time in three months as its strong start to 2019 continued.
The FTSE 100 firm, headquartered in Hull, saw sales in the first half of the year rise almost two per cent on the same period in 2018, as operating profits also surged.
Smith & Nephew said strong performance in China had contributed to the rise, as its sales in the Far East country soared by more than 30 per cent.
Namal Nawana, CEO at Smith & Nephew, said: "The positive momentum across the business globally in the first half of 2019 has led us to upgrade our full year revenue growth guidance.
"Organic revenue growth has been solid across all three franchises, with strong performance in Emerging Markets and global Sports Medicine. At the same time, we expanded our margin.
"We are delivering on our commitments to accelerate revenue growth, improve profitability and importantly make investments that support the long-term success of Smith & Nephew."
Sales at Smith & Nephew hit $2.49bn in the first half of 2019 – up from $2.44bn in the same period last year
Operating profits rose to $419m, boosted by a string of impressive acquisitions from Smith & Nephew in 2019.
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Smith & Nephew has hit the headlines several times this year for its acquisitions, perhaps most notably its £500m deal to buy Osiris.
Other big deals include the acquisition of Ceterix Orthopaedics, Leaf Healthcare and Brainlab Orthopaedic Joint Reconstruction.
Earlier this year, Smith & Nephew increased its full-year revenue growth target to 3.5 per cent.
It has however now said that growth could pass four per cent, as 2019 continues to reap rewards for the FTSE 100 manufacturer.
July proved to be a busy month for Smith & Nephew.
The business launched the latest version of its robotic surgical software NAVIO 7.0, and also completed the acquisition of fellow medical specialist Atracsys Sarl.
Atracsys’ fusionTrack 500 optical tracking camera helps improve the accuracy of surgical tasks including bone cuts, and reduces operating times.
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Skip Kiil, global president of orthopaedics at Smith & Nephew, said: “The promise of computer-assisted surgery with robotics is to provide faster, more accurate, reproducible results that enable surgeons to restore quality of life to more patients.
“With the acquisition of Atracsys, we are securing what we believe to be the best-in-class position tracking technology for our next-generation robotic-assisted surgical system.”
Looking ahead, Smith & Nephew said it expected its 2019 profit margin to be between 22.8 per cent and 23.2 per cent.
Smith & Nephew’s next figures, for quarter three, will be released in late October.
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