Intuitive Surgical's shares gained early Friday as the robotic surgical systems company reported better-than-expected third-quarter results amid double-digit growth in procedure volumes. Adjusted earnings came in at $1.84 a share for the September quarter, up from $1.46 the year before, the company said late Thursday.
The consensus on Capital IQ was for normalized EPS of $1.64. Revenue climbed 17% year over year to $2.04 billion, topping the Street's view of $2.01 billion. The stock rose 6.2% in premarket activity. Revenue in the instruments and accessories segment advanced 18% to $1.26 billion. The increase was mainly driven by roughly 18% growth in the number of procedures using the company's da Vinci robotic surgery systems and about 73% jump in Ion procedure volume.
Procedures in the US rose 16% driven by gains in benign general surgery. Outside the country, procedure volume rose 24%, aided by general surgery, gynecology and thoracic procedures. Growth was strong in the UK and India and solid in Japan, Germany, France and Italy. In China, procedure growth was below the corporate average, given recent system placement trends reflecting several market dynamics and domestic robotic competition.
Systems revenue amounted to $445 million, up from $379.4 million a year ago. The firm placed 379 da Vinci surgical systems during the quarter, including 110 da Vinci 5 systems, versus 312 last year. Services revenue moved up to $328.9 million from $292.9 million in the prior-year quarter. Total operating expenses rose to $796.6 million from $701.4 million.
Intuitive Surgical now expects procedure growth of 16% and 17% for full-year 2024, reflecting a higher low end versus the prior guidance of 15.5%. Pro forma operating expense growth is anticipated to be in a range of 10% to 12%. The firm continues to project pro forma gross profit margin to be within 68.5% and 69% of net revenue for the year.
Our actual gross profit margin will vary quarter-to-quarter depending largely on product, regional and trade-in mix and the impact of new product introductions..