Smiths Group sees organic growth accelerate in Q3

Smiths Group reported an acceleration in sales growth in the third quarter despite tough comparators with last year, as the engineering firm reaffirmed its growth expectations for the full year.

The company reported organic revenue growth of 7.7% in the third quarter to 3 May, up from 3.9% in the first half, taking the growth rate for the first nine months of the fiscal year to 5.2%.

This was in line with the full-year growth guidance of 4-6%, and came against last year's record nine-month comparator of 13.4% growth.

Smiths Group said the pick-up in growth was a result of strong demand in the John Crane, Smiths Detection and Flex-Tek aerospace divisions, as well as "gradually improving market conditions" in Flex-Tek construction and Smiths Interconnect.

Roland Carter, Smiths Group's new chief executive who joined in the third quarter, said the step-up in growth was "as we expected".

"We continued to deliver strong results, building further on last year's record performance and our solid first half. Our strategy of accelerating growth, improving execution and investing in our people is driving performance," he said.

"Our strong results for the year to date, together with our visibility for the final quarter, gives us confidence in our full-year guidance of organic revenue growth in our medium-term target range of 4-6%, with continued margin expansion."