3M (Saint Paul, Minn.) reported a net income of $1.41 billion in the third quarter of 2020, a 10.7% drop from the same period last year. Net sales increased 4.5% year-over-year to $8.4 billion.
Company officials said in a post-earnings call that the increased demand for N95 respirators due to the pandemic continued during the quarter, and they expect to have made approximately 2 billion masks by year’s end.
“Though economic uncertainty and challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic remain, we returned to positive organic sales growth with sequential improvement across businesses and geographies,” 3M Chairman and CEO Mike Roman stated. “We posted another quarter of robust cash flow, aggressively managed costs and further strengthened our balance sheet.”
The company’s Safety and Industrial segment, which includes its abrasives and PPE products, saw a sales increase of 6.9% compared with the third quarter of 2019, growing to $3.0 billion. However, sales declined for abrasives.
