CLEVELAND -- Applied Industrial Technologies recently reported second quarter fiscal 2011 sales and earnings for the three months ended December 31, 2010.
Net sales for the second quarter increased 18.7% to $529,517,000 from $446,253,000 in the comparable period a year ago. Net income for the quarter increased 102% to $21,193,000 or $0.49 per share compared to $10,487,000 or $0.24 per share last year.For the six months ended December 31, 2010, sales were $1,057,018,000 compared to $883,996,000 in the same period last year. Net income was $41,948,000 or $0.97 per share compared to $21,674,000 or $0.51 per share, last year.
"We were once again pleased with the strength of our quarterly results, and with our ability to efficiently convert sales increases to proportionately higher levels of profitability," said David L. Pugh, Applied's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Our strong performance is fueled by the recovering industrial economy and, in particular, exceptional results within those segments of our fluid power business that provide products and solutions for automation and machine control applications.
"We continue to execute the business fundamentals quite well with a focus on cost control and operational efficiency. We generated a second quarter operating margin of 6.2%, up from 4.2% in the same quarter a year ago, further demonstrating that we are actively managing our business with the increased pace of the economy. We also paid off the remainder of our existing debt, further improving our capacity to grow our business for the future.
"We believe that we will continue to see moderate growth in our daily sales run rates from the current levels throughout the remaining two quarters of our fiscal year. Based on the strength of our second quarter performance, we are raising our earnings guidance for the full fiscal year 2011 and now expect to achieve earnings of $1.90 to $2.10 per share compared to our previous forecast of $1.80 to $2.05 per share. We are raising the low end of our full-year sales guidance from $2.05 billion to $2.15 billion and maintaining our high end estimate of $2.25 billion."
Applied did not repurchase any shares during the quarter. At December 31, 2010, the company had remaining authorization to purchase 837,200 additional shares.
