November 4, 2013
Bayer Group posts strong growth in Q3 2013
In the third quarter of 2013, the Bayer Group continued its positive business momentum with substantial contributions from the Life Science businesses HealthCare and CropScience.
"HealthCare registered encouraging growth, largely due to the outstanding sales performance for our new pharmaceutical products," Bayer Management Board Chairman Marijn Dekkers explained when the interim report was released on Thursday (Oct 31). CropScience benefited from a continuing favourable market environment and a good start to the season in Latin America, he said.
Sales of the agriculture business (CropScience) increased in the third quarter by 4.3% to €1,712 million (US$2.3 billion) versus €1,641 million (US$2.2 billion) of third quarter 2012. "This increase was mainly due to the good development of our crop protection products. Our business benefited from a continuing favourable market environment and a good start to the season in Latin America," Dekkers explained. This subgroup posted its largest gains in the Latin America/Africa/Middle East region mainly due to strong business in Brazil. CropScience sales in the Asia/Pacific region also rose by a double-digit percentage, while sales in Europe matched the high level of the previous year, business in North America receded by 6.5% against a very strong prior-year quarter.
At Crop Protection, Insecticides and Fungicides were particularly successful. These product groups increased sales by 28.2% and 24.7%, respectively. Herbicides saw a small sales gain of 1.9%, while business with seed treatment products (SeedGrowth) remained at the level of the prior-year period. The positive overall development in these business units more than offset the significantly lower sales in Seeds. This was largely the result of reduced rapeseed and cotton acreages in North America, which also led to higher product returns. Sales of the Environmental Science operating segment advanced by 19.2%. Both the products for professional users and the consumer business contributed to this growth.