Dow Chemical Beats Wall Street on 188% Profit Gain

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) revealed on Thursday a 188% jump in fourth-quarter profit, helped primarily by improved prices and stronger demand in all of its geographies and business segments.

The Midland, Mich.-based company posted net income of $513 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with $178 million, or 8 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

Excluding special items, the company earned 47 cents a share, ahead of average analyst estimates polled by Thomson Reuters of 35 cents.

Revenue for the manufacturer and seller of chemicals, plastic materials, agricultural and other products was $13.77 billion, up 10.5% from $12.46 billion a year ago, beating the Street’s view of $12.48 billion.

“This was a strong quarter for Dow and marked another significant milestone for our company as we continued to deliver earnings growth,” said Dow CEO Andrew Liveris. “Broad-based sales increases and robust volume gains across the globe reflected the strength of our transformed business portfolio and wide geographic presence.”

Sequentially, sales increased doubled-digits in all geographic areas and all segments except coatings and infrastructure, which was still up 6%. Volume gains were led by its Asia Pacific and Latin America regions, up 8% and 6%, respectively.

Health and agricultural sciences posted its record fourth-quarter sales of $1.3 billion, helped by 20% volume growth with gains across all geographic regions, particularly in Latin America.

Also weighing in on the results was a 10% hike in prices, which helped to offset a $685 million increase in the feedstock and energy costs.