3M on Tuesday reported an increase in its third quarter sales and disclosed a new agreement with Amazon for products used in data centers.
The Minnesota-based industrial giant posted $6.6 billion in sales, which was up 1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sales were up 0.2% over that span on an organic basis.
The company also highlighted an operating margin that climbed 150 basis points to 23.7%, and earnings that rose 70% to $2.63 per share. 3M Chairman and CEO Bill Brown said that the latest quarter saw “solid sales growth, continued margin expansion, double-digit EPS growth, and robust free cash flow.”
The company maintained its forecast of approximately 4.5% sales growth for the full year, and raised its adjusted earnings outlook from the previous $8.80 to $8.95 per share up to $9.10 to $9.15 per share.
"Improving productivity through structural transformation and a stronger pipeline of differentiated technologies reinforce our confidence in the full-year outlook and long-term growth and margin potential,” Brown said in a statement.
3M also listed recent “strategic and operational highlights” in its earnings release, one of which was an “expanded commercial relationship” with e-commerce and technology giant Amazon. Under the agreement, disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Amazon could purchase up to 3.2 million shares of 3M common stock provided it meets certain conditions — including the purchase of at least $6 billion in “optical connectivity and other data center-related products” from 3M over the next seven years.
