Intuitive Quarterly Robot Sales Decline Almost by Half
This article is for subscribers only.
Intuitive Surgical Inc. said in a preliminary report that first-quarter revenue declined about 24 percent amid a sharp drop in sales of its robotic surgery system. The shares fell.
Intuitive shipped 87 robots in the first quarter compared with 164 a year earlier, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said in a statement released in advance of their earnings report. Intuitive also took a pretax charge of $67 million to reflect estimated costs of settling product liability claims mostly related to alleged complications from surgeries performed with certain robotic scissors or tip covers that have been taken off the market, the statement said.