J&J Still Sees Impact of McNeil Recalls, But Brands Are Coming Back
By Katherine Hobson and Peter Loftus
Johnson & Johnson avoided a third consecutive year of sales declines in 2011 — sales rose 5.6%, to $65 billion, last year, according to the company’s latest financial report, out today.
Still, as the WSJ reports, the company is still feeling the impact of quality-related recalls over the past two years. In 2010, the string of recalls at J&J’s McNeil business cost it about $900 million in sales.
The company didn’t do a similar break-out for 2011. However, as you can see from the financial results, sales at its U.S. over-the-counter/nutritionals unit (which is mostly McNeil) fell 23% to $1.43 billion last year from $1.85 billion in 2010.
That implies a drop of about another $400 million last year, though other factors besides the recalls are likely reflected in the decline. (Sales fell 37%, or by $1.04 billion, to $1.85 billion in 2010 — a larger amount than the $900 million the company attributed to the recalls.)
CEO William Weldon told analysts today that the company is making progress on the quality-control and other fronts. “We have turned the corner on a particularly difficult period for our company,” he said. And by the end of this year, he expects […]
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