Libourne, France, 22 July, 2013:

Consolidated sales of the Ceva Group reached €310m in the first 6 months of 2013, up by 2%, 4.2% on the previous year at a constant perimeter and exchange rates.

Ceva recorded solid growth of 9% on a constant basis (constant perimeter and exchange rates), if one excludes 2 factors: 

Vectra® sales in the United States, which were less than anticipated, due to a particularly long winter delaying the start of the flea and tick season. (In spite of this, Vectra® dispensing by veterinarians outperformed the rest of the vet topical flea and tick market by 7.8 percentage points).
In addition to this, unfavourable exchange rate movements of the US Dollar, and other currencies in most of the emerging economies had a negative impact. This growth was entirely organic, confirming the importance of Ceva’s increasingly differentiated and innovative product and services offer.

The poultry vaccine, services and equipment offer spearheaded by the “Perfect Pair” of Transmune® IBD, and Vectormune® ND, which together allow vaccination against 3 major diseases in the hatchery for the first time, drove growth throughout the world. Sales of avian vaccines grew by +18% with Asia, Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa/Middle East all registering double digit growth figures and the US close to this figure at +9%.

The pharmaceuticals business also continued to grow even with the impact of lower Vectra® sales. The Behavior products Feliway® and Adaptil® posted a +22% rise in sales.

Geographically, the overall animal health market has been affected by the same economic factors that have divided the world into 3 economic blocks. The countries of the “old Europe” are generally in real crisis with little or often negative growth. This slowdown has resulted in severe price competition, particularly in the antibiotics market where the health authorities are also committed to reducing the total use in livestock. In North America the economy is close to taking off once more and in general terms the emerging economies have maintained high levels of growth.

Against this background all 6 zones posted growth; in Ceva’s home market of France, sales were up 6% against a flat market. Central Europe and Turkey confirmed he exceptional growth trend posted in 2012 with Russia (+28%), Turkey (+11%) underlining the importance of this area for future development of livestock production. The Latin America zone was up +10.9% with Brazil recovering and the remainder of the area performing exceptionally.

Commenting on the results, Ceva Chairman & CEO Marc Prikazsky said: “The first half of 2013 was operationally difficult, demonstrating that we cannot take our trend of constant growth as given. The overall global market was very challenging underlining the need for innovation to drive further expansion. In these circumstances, I am extremely pleased that our teams have once again demonstrated their ability to deliver strong organic growth.”

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