The company’s business on the local market has been affected by the depreciation of the leu against the euro, and the “economy’s steep downturn.”
The report further indicates that the retail distribution segment helped Richter Gedeon Romania’s business to soar slightly, by some three percent, to €34.1 mln in Q1 2009 from €33.2 mln in the first three months of 2008. Moreover, the local subsidiary made up 95 percent of the group’s sales on this segment.
The company registered an approximately 18 percent net sales growth rate in Romania on the wholesale and retail segment in the first quarter. On the pharmaceutical product segment, sales of the Hungarian group on the local market dropped by an annual 15.7 percent, to €5.9 mln. According to company data, the decline was partially caused by the fact that medication retail prices were fixed in national currency, which lost 16 percent against the euro.
At global level, sales of Richter Gedeon slid six percent in the first quarter of 2009, to €206.7 mln, while net income surged 84.5 percent, to €72.7 mln.
