Ljubljana, 16 November (STA) - Slovenia's pharma group Krka saw its net profit fall by 22% year-on-year to EUR 235.6 million in the first nine months of the year despite sales revenue rising by 8% to EUR 1.34 billion.
According to the interim report released by the company, Krka generated EUR 1.25 billion of the sales revenue in foreign markets. Sales were up across all its sales regions and most markets.
East Europe accounted for 32.5% of all its sales. Sales revenue there went up by 5% year on-year to EUR 434 million. Krka's biggest single market, Russia accounted for EUR 260 million, up 3%, while sales in Ukraine dropped by 7% to EUR 55.8 million.
Sales revenue in Central Europe rose by 9% to EUR 305 million with Poland as the company's biggest market in the region seeing sales rise by 6% to EUR 136.6 million.
In West Europe sales were up by 10% to EUR 266.4 million and in South East Europe they rose by 8% to EUR 187.2 million. In overseas markets sales were up by 13% to EUR 55.5 million.
The group's operating profit (EBIT) totalled EUR 320.3 million, up 37% year-over-year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) was up by 27% to EUR 398.2 million.
The group's net financial result for the period was negative at -EUR 33.7 million, with net foreign exchange losses totalling EUR 41 million.
The net financial result was down by EUR 156.1 million from the same period last year, mainly as a result of the considerable strengthening of the Russian rouble during the same period in 2022.
The group's profit before tax was down by 20% year-on-year to EUR 286.6 million.
The core company Krka increased sales revenue by 3% to EUR 1.25 billion. EBIT was down by 16% to EUR 252.8 million, EBITDA down by 14% to EUR 312.5 million and net profit was down 40% y/y to EUR 212.1 million.
The group expects to generate a total of EUR 1.77 billion in sales this year, up 3.6% from 2022. Net profit is to fall to EUR 300 million from EUR 364 million last year.
A the end of September the group had 11,610 full-time staff. Including agency workers, its total headcount was 12,637.
