(Reuters) – Intuitive Surgical Inc beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly sales and profit on Thursday, boosted by a rise in total procedures volume of its surgical robot da Vinci.
Shares of the company, however, fell about 6% to $328, after the bell, due to higher investor expectations.
“This is a very typical ISRG quarter where they beat the Street on procedures and systems but expectations on the buyside were simply higher than that,” said BTIG analyst Ryan Zimmerman.
Medical device makers expect a spurt in demand for elective procedures this year as pandemic-driven restrictions as well as hospital staffing shortages have eased, helping to lift up its sales.
Larger peer Abbott Laboratories earlier on Thursday also reported a better-than-expected quarter as a rebound in surgical procedure volumes drove demand for medical devices despite high inflation-driven costs.
Intuitive reported second-quarter sales of $1.76 billion, compared to analysts’ estimates of $1.74 billion, according to IBES Refinitiv data.
Commentary from health insurers such as UnitedHealth Group has been positive for some elective procedure, mostly in the orthopedics arena – knees and hip surgery – and Medicare enrollees are coming back to the hospitals as well, which is a positive for Intuitive, Zimmerman told Reuters.
A market leader for surgical robots, Intuitive’s worldwide da Vinci procedure volumes rose about 22% from a year earlier, benefiting from higher patient admissions as they catch up with treatment that was delayed during the pandemic.
Excluding items, Intuitive earned $1.42 per share in the three months ended June 30, above analysts’ average estimate of $1.33 per share.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
