COVID-19 continues to cause disruptions and difficulties. There are some ASX shares that are seeing increased demand for their products or services.
There are some businesses that are still being impacted, such as travel ASX shares such as Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN), Sydney Airport Holdings Pty Ltd (ASX: SYD) and Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT).
But then there are ASX shares like the below ones that are seeing stronger demand because of the global COVID-19 outbreaks:
Ansell Limited (ASX: ANN)
Ansell is a business that makes a variety of safety gear such as quality protective gloves and protective suits.
It has a global customer base, with customers in more than 100 countries.
A few months ago at the end of April 2021, before the Delta COVID variant was as prevalent as it is now, Ansell said that it was still seeing elevated demand for protective equipment around the world and that the financial performance since January 2021 had been stronger than expected.
The ASX share has also been working on expanding its capacity so that it can meet the stronger demand.
Ansell has experienced increases in raw material and outsourced supplier costs, but it has managed to pass on price increases to customers even better than it was expecting.
The company has been effective at still supplying customers with products despite the tightness of raw material supply and disruptions to ocean freight.
Ansell is likely to soon give an update during reporting season about how things are currently going.
In April, Ansell provided guidance that it expected its FY21 second half sales growth to be "strong" despite the solid performance in the prior corresponding and above the 24.5% growth reported in the first half of FY21.
The ASX share has given earnings per share (EPS) guidance of US$1.92 to US$2.02 for FY21.
Sonic Healthcare Ltd (ASX: SHL)
Sonic is one of the largest ASX healthcare shares.
It has operations in a number of countries including New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany and the USA.
Sonic continues to play an important role in the fight against COVID-19. It has been doing millions of PCR tests at around 60 Sonic laboratories around the world.
The business is experiencing a significant revenue and earnings contribution from this COVID-19 testing, with it leveraging existing infrastructure. That's how half-year revenue was able to grow by 33% by and net profit soared 166% to $678 million.
Sonic decided to only implement a modest 6% increase in its interim dividend. Management are looking to utilise the cash it has generated to acquire other businesses to lock-in an increase in earnings. For example, it recently bought Canberra Imaging Group which has annual revenue of around $60 million.
Sonic is looking at other opportunities in multiple countries such as Australia, the UK, the USA and Canada. It also said that its pre-COVID business is becoming increasingly resilient to the pandemic.
