3M Relies on More Than Just Face Masks to Get Through Pandemic
(Bloomberg) — 3M Co. jumped after the maker of personal protective equipment reported strength in more than just its face-mask business.
Rising demand for cleaning supplies, food-safety products and even home-improvement items helped propel sales and profit above Wall Street’s expectations for the first quarter. While many industries have been decimated by the coronavirus outbreak, 3M reported Tuesday that its revenue rose 2.7%.
“These quarterly results were better than feared and indicated that there were still pockets of growth in personal safety, food safety, general cleaning and biopharma filtration,” Deane Dray, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a note. Virus-driven demand for respirators, meanwhile, added 1.3 percentage points of organic growth, he said.
The results underscore the dramatic economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. While demand has tailed off in industries such as air travel and restaurants, other companies are seeing soaring interest in products to fight