Agilent Technologies hails ‘solid’ performance in Q4 2013

Agilent Technologies has reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2013, during which it achieved a revenue total of $1.72 billion (1.07 billion pounds).

Although this represented a year-on-year decline of three percent, the company achieved growth in other areas, with orders rising four percent to $1.83 billion and earnings performance exceeding internal forecasts.

The state of the global economy continued to pose difficulties for Agilent, but encouraging performances were nevertheless recorded for its chemical analysis and life sciences and diagnostics divisions.

Agilent chief executive officer Bill Sullivan said: "We finished the year with a solid quarter, building backlog and exceeding earnings per share guidance despite challenges in several of our markets."

The company announced in September 2013 that it will be splitting into two separate and independent businesses, a process that is now well underway.

One will be focused on life sciences, diagnostics and applied markets and the other oriented around electronic measurements, with the split to be finalised by November 2014.