Syngenta's crop protection sales up 6 percent

Syngenta reports $7.25 billion in sales during the first half year of 2018: 5 percent higher, up 7 percent adjusted for the sugar beet seed and mandated crop protection antitrust divestments.

Crop protection sales were up 6 percent, 8 percent excluding divestments, while seeds sales were flat, 5 percent higher excluding the sugar beet divestment.

EBITDA was up 1 percent at $1.7 billion, 8 percent excluding divestments; margin 23.4 percent (H1 2017: 24.2 percent).

Erik Fyrwald, Chief Executive Officer, said: "In the first half of this year we delivered sales growth of 5 percent compared to H1 2017, 7 percent when adjusted for antitrust and sugar beet divestments. The result is an encouraging outcome given difficult market conditions and we continue to focus on serving customers to help improve their profitability and sustainability.

It is pleasing that we have returned to growth, on an adjusted basis, in all regions, particularly in Brazil where a solid performance was achieved after several years of declining sales. Global productivity programs helped off-set higher raw material and logistics costs, limiting the impact on EBITDA margin.

Looking ahead, we will continue to strive to serve customers with quality crop protection and seeds products reliably delivered and with new technology that enhances performance for farmers everywhere. We continue to aggressively drive productivity, thereby minimizing the margin impact, despite the continued pressure from higher oil prices, short supply of many key chemical ingredients and increased logistics costs."

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