People volunteer to take Covid-19 surveillance tests using Quest Diagnostics ’self-administered PCR test on July 12, 2020 in Livingston, Montana.
William Campbell | Getty Images
Quest Diagnostics said Thursday that Covid-19’s continued high demand for testing helped drive record revenue and earnings for the company during the fourth quarter and throughout 2020.
Although the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted routine blood testing and molecular testing comprising much of the company’s business operations, Quest steadily increased its capacity last year to perform Covid-19 testing.
Below is Quest’s performance compared to what Wall Street expected, based on analysts ’average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:
- Adjusted EPS: $ 4.48 versus $ 4.24 expected.
- Revenue: $ 3 billion versus $ 2.93 billion projected.
The company reported net income of more than $ 3 billion for the quarter ended December 31, nearly 56 percent from $ 1.93 billion in the same period in 2019. Unadjusted, the company’s earnings they doubled to $ 579 million, up from $ 253 million during the same time last year.
“In a pandemic-dominated year, Quest brought critical evidence of COVID-19 to our country and delivered records of revenue, earnings and cash from operations in the fourth quarter and full year of 2020,” he said. say Steve Rusckowski, president and CEO of Quest. statement.
Rusckowski announced that the company will increase its dividend by 10.7% to 62 cents per quarter and authorize a $ 1 billion increase in its share repurchase plan.
Quest and other major diagnostic laboratories were at the center of the examination during the summer, when demand for Covid-19 testing services increased dramatically amid a resurgence of infections in various parts of the country, particularly the Solar Belt. In July, the company acknowledged that it took more than a week to get the results of coronavirus testing for most patients, similar to competitors like LabCorp.
Politicians insisted in the labs on what was causing the delay in change, while some public health specialists called for the need to study and implement new types of testing. Although progress has been made in the development of new rapid response antigen testing, molecular PCR testing, such as that processed by Quest Laboratories, remains the gold standard in the country.
CEO Rusckowski noted that the company’s non-covid business recovered during the summer and fall as new daily cases fell in the U.S., but the recovery stalled as the country s ‘was approaching winter and another wave of cases.
“The downturns in our core business recovered rapidly throughout the summer and fall; however, the recovery stalled in late November and through December due to increased COVID-19 infections. across the country, ”Rusckowski said. “The continued high demand for COVID-19 testing boosted our performance during the second half of the year.”
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