(Reuters) – U.S. medical device maker Edwards Lifesciences narrowly topped Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday as it sold more heart monitors, but its outlook for March quarter earnings fell below analysts’ forecasts.
The company’s critical care business, which houses its HemoSphere heart monitoring systems, had sales of $178 million in the final quarter of 2018, up 8 percent from a year earlier.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month gave clearance to add artificial intelligence technology to HemoSphere, making it the first such system to offer predictive monitoring of moderate to high-risk surgical patients.
Edwards’ net sales overall climbed 10 percent to $977.7 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31. Analysts on average had expected $976 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Its net income reached $7 million, compared with a loss of $2.8 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, it earned $1.17 per share, matching analysts’ forecasts.
The company projected March quarter sales of between $950 million and $1.01 billion, and adjusted earnings of between $1.15 and $1.25 per share. Analysts were expecting revenue of $997.2 million and earnings of $1.30 per share.
(Reporting by Aakash Jagadeesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
