On Friday morning, hearing aid manufacturer GN Hearing presented its third quarterly report of the year. This comes three weeks after the company had to downgrade its 2021 financial guidance, now expecting an organic growth rate of around 16 percent in 2021 compared to the previous 25 percent.

When that happened, GN Hearing also adjusted its EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortizations) margin guidance to "more than" 12 percent, down from "more than" 16 percent.

In connection with Friday's quarterly report, the hearing aid manufacturer unsurpringsingly reports that it has mantained its new 2021 guidance.

"Unfortunately, we had to revise our financial guidance for the year due to product launch delays. However, we firmly believe that the transformation we have initiated of our R&D setup will secure the new product launches in 2022 that enables our continued journey towards delivering more natural and individualized hearing instruments," CEO at GN Hearing Gitte Aabo says in the press release.

"Further, we are very pleased to finally see the draft over-the-counter regulation, which will open new market opportunities, and we look forward to having the opportunity to comment on FDA's proposal," she adds, referring to the FDA presentation last week of the long-awaited proposal for the regulation of OTC hearing aids.

Organic growth

With the downgrade earlier this month, GN Hearing also unveiled the preliminary third quarter revenue of DKK 1,346m (USD 210m), corresponding to an organic growth of 4 percent compared to the same period last year.

The firm now reports Q3 revenue of DKK 1,347m (USD 211m), and organic growth of 4 percent compared to Q3 of 2020. However, when compared to 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, this is still a negative organic growth rate of 6 percent.

For the first nine months of the year, organic growth has been 22 percent – well above the previous expectation for the year's organic growth of 16 percent, which came as a result of the downgrade in beginning of October.

At the end of Q3 2021, the EBITA margin was 12.8 percent, which the same quarter last year also reported. This means that EBITA margin for the first nine months of the year is 10.9 percent against the comparable 2020 period's -3.3 percent.

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