3M Profit Rises, 2015 Targets Reaffirmed

3M Co (NYSE:MMM), the maker of adhesives and abrasives including Post-it notes, reported a lower-than-expected 2 percent rise in quarterly revenue, hurt by a stronger dollar.

The company's shares were down 1.2 percent at $162.25 in premarket trading on Tuesday.

The dollar has surged about 20 percent against its major trading partners since May last year, hurting 3M, which gets more than 60 percent of sales from outside the United States.

The effect was most marked in Europe, Middle East and Africa, where 3M's sales fell 6.4 percent. Excluding the impact of the rising dollar, they grew 3.3 percent.

Net income attributable to 3M rose to $1.18 billion, or $1.81 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, from $1.10 billion, or $1.62 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.80 per share on revenue of $7.77 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

3M's revenue increased to $7.72 billion in the quarter.

The company's shares, part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, have risen about 27 percent in the past 12 months, compared with an about 3 percent rise in the Dow Jones Global Industrials Index.

(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Joyjeet Das)