Swedish krona affects Sectra's Q3

The performance of the Swedish krona negatively affected the earnings of PACS and digital mammography developer Sectra in its third fiscal quarter of 2011.

For the quarter (end-January 31), the company's net sales rose 14% to 229.1 million kronor ($36 million U.S.), compared with 201.2 million kronor ($31.6 million U.S.) in the third quarter of fiscal 2010. The company also posted an operating loss of 5.9 million kronor ($926,000 U.S.), compared with a loss of 2.5 million kronor ($393,000 U.S.) in the same quarter a year ago.

Net sales for the nine-month period rose 15% to 682.6 million kronor ($107.3 million U.S.), compared with 592.9 million kronor ($93.1 million U.S.) in the same period of 2010. The firm's operating profit was 1.8 million kronor ($283,000 U.S.), compared with 14 million kronor ($2.2 million U.S.) in the same period last year. The result after net financial items was a loss of 9.7 million kronor ($1.5 million U.S.). Exchange-rate fluctuations had a negative impact of 12.4 million kronor ($1.9 million U.S.), the company said.

Sectra recently announced that it has entered the Canadian mammography market with the approval of its Sectra MicroDose system.