LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), August 2 (SeeNews) – Slovenian pharmaceuticals producer Krka [LJE:KRKG] said it plans to make a 172 million euro ($191 million) net profit this year, a touch lower than the 2018 net profit of 174 million euro announced earlier.
The company also forecasts sales of 1.375 billion euro in 2019, it said in a filing with the Ljubljana Stock Exchange on Thursday.
This compares with the revenue of 1.33 billion euro for 2018 which Krka reported in March.
"The Management Board is optimistic about the 2019 business year," the company said. "If the conditions in our main markets remain roughly the same until the end of the year, we estimate that sales and especially profit will exceed our plans."
Krka also said it plans to allocate over 124 million euro to investment projects this year, aimed at increasing and upgrading production facilities and infrastructure, while 10% of its revenue will be invested in research and development.
In the first half of the year, Krka's net profit rose by an annual 38% to 139.9 million euro. Its sales increased 12% on the year to 761 million euro in the six months through June.
The group's largest sales region in January-June was Eastern Europe, while Russia remained Krka’s largest individual market, followed by Poland and Germany. The second largest region was Western Europe, with highest growth rates in the Scandinavian countries, Spain, the UK and Portugal.
In the first half, the Krka Group already invested 52.6 million euro to increase and upgrade production and development, and provide for quality assurance. It also invested in its production and distribution centres around the world.
At the end of June, the group employed 11,523 people, half of them outside Slovenia.
($=0.902212 euro)
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