Sonova Holding AG said fiscal-year 2018 earnings rose year over year and set its earnings forecast for the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.
The Swiss company's normalized EBITA for the fiscal year was CHF551.6 million, up 14.6% from CHF481.4 million in the year-ago period. Normalized EBITA for fiscal year 2018 excludes one-time costs of CHF19.2 million related to the company's acquisition of AudioNova.
Normalized basic EPS for the 12-month period came in at CHF6.36, up from CHF5.58 the previous year.
The S&P Capital IQ consensus normalized EPS estimate for 2018 is CHF6.47.
Sales for the year reached CHF2.65 billion, up 10.4% from CHF2.40 billion the preceding year.
Research and development costs for the fiscal year were CHF142.9 million, up from CHF137.1 million in the year-ago period.
For fiscal year 2019, the hearing instruments maker expects overall sales to grow by 2% to 4% and EBITA to grow by 6% to 9%, both in local currency terms.
Sonova also expects the impact of its acquisitions and disposal of its noncore retail assets, as well as the US Hearing Service Plan business, to reduce its growth and have a small impact on the company's profitability.
