Abbott sales beat on higher demand for medical devices

Abbott Laboratories reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit as strong sales in its medical device business more than made up for the hit from an economic turmoil in Venezuela. Abbott is one of the major US companies to be affected by troubled operations in Venezuela.
The Latin American nation's economy contracted by 4.5 percent in the first nine months of last year as plunging oil prices, and what critics of President Nicolas Maduro see as policy missteps, took an increasing toll.
Venezuela's official annual inflation rate was the world's highest at 141.5 percent in the nine months.
Abbott, which rakes in two-thirds of its revenue from outside the United States, said emerging market sales increased 1.1 percent but would have risen 4.8 percent excluding the impact of Venezuelan operations.
The company's results, however, beat Wall Street estimates, largely helped by its booming medical device business, where sales rose 6.4 percent to $1.37 billion in the second quarter.