Cochlear Limited (ASX: COH) shares are on the move on Thursday morning.
At the time of writing, the hearing solutions company's shares are up 6% to $310.00.
Why are Cochlear shares charging higher?
Investors have been fighting to get hold of the company's shares today after it released an update on its guidance for FY 2024.
According to the release, Cochlear has had a stronger than expected first half for cochlear implant revenue and therefore believes it will now outperform its guidance over the full year.
As a reminder, Cochlear was guiding to underlying net profit of $355 million to $375 million for FY 2024.
However, today's update reveals that it is now guiding to underlying net profit in the range of $385 million to $400 million, which will represent a 26% to 31% increase on FY 2023's result.
First half update
While its results will be released in full later this month on 19 February, management has given investors a taste of what's to come.
It advised that it expects to report a first half sales revenue increase of 25% (20% in constant currency) to $1,113 million with underlying net profit of $192 million.
Cochlear's CEO and President, Dig Howitt, commented:
Cochlear implant trading conditions have been strong across the first half, with units growing 14%. We have maintained the market share gains made in FY23 and market growth has continued to be robust across both developed and emerging markets, as well as all age segments – children, adults and seniors. The key change to our expectations is that we now expect to achieve 10-15% growth in our cochlear implant units for FY24 compared to the high single-digit growth expected in August.
