Agilent Technologies Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by AlphaStreet
May 29, 2024
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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Agilent Technologies Q2 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Regina and I will be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand you over to your host, Parmeet Ahuja, to begin. Please go ahead.

Parmeet Ahuja
Investor Relations at Agilent Technologies

Thank you and welcome everyone to Agilent's conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024. With me are Padraig McDonnell, Agilent President and CEO and Bob McMahon, Agilent Senior Vice President and CFO. Joining in the Q&A will be Phil Binns, President of the Agilent Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group; Simon May, our newly named President of the Agilent Diagnostics and Genomics Group and Angelica Reimann, President of the Agilent CrossLab Group.

This presentation is being webcast live. The news release for our second quarter financial results, investor presentation and information to supplement today's discussion along with the recording of this webcast are available on our website at www.investor.agilent.com. Today's comments will refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You will find the most directly comparable GAAP financial metrics and reconciliations on our website. Unless otherwise noted, all references to increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year and references to revenue growth are on a core basis.

Core revenue growth excludes the impact of currency and any acquisitions and divestitures completed within the past 12 months. Guidance is based on forecasted exchange rates. As previously announced, beginning in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we implemented certain changes to our segment reporting structure, related to the move of our cell analysis business from LSAG into DGG. We have recast our historical segment information to reflect these changes. These changes have no impact on our company's consolidated financial statements.

During this call, we will also make forward-looking statements about the financial performance of the company. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are only valid as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update them. Please look at the company's recent SEC filings for a more complete picture of our risk and other factors.

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Padraig.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Thanks, Parmeet. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining today's call. I want to begin by saying I'm incredibly honored to serve as CEO of this great company and I'm thankful for the opportunity to lead such a talented team. I truly believe the Agilent team is second to none and I'm energized about the future possibilities that lie ahead of us. I also want to take this time to welcome our new DGG President, Simon May to the Agilent team. Simon's diversified experience, strong technical skills and growth mindset will be a key asset in this role. Since starting earlier this month, Simon has hit the ground running and I am really looking forward to him helping move DGG and Agilent forward.

Before I talk about the quarterly results, I'd like to tell you how I spent my time since the announcement in February, that I would become Agilent CEO. I've been meeting and connecting with employees, customers and shareholders around the world to listen to their perspectives and how we should build on our strengths and evolve Agilent. What they have told me is clear, Agilent must become even more customer focused and even more nimble to continue to win in the marketplace and add value to customers and shareholders. This has really resonated with our employees and customers.

As an energized Agilent team, we will evolve our strategy, adapting quickly to market trends and changes while accelerating our patients innovation in areas of greatest return for long-term growth. We will double down on our customer force culture, deepening our relationship to further enhance our market leading customer experience that is already the best in the industry.

Now, let's talk about the Q2 results and outlook moving forward. In a challenging market environment, the Agilent team delivered on expectations. In the second quarter, we reported revenue of $1.573 billion, a 7.4% decline. This was against a tough compare of 9.5% growth in Q2 of last year. While revenues declined in the quarter, our book-to-bill was greater than 1 and orders grew year-over-year for the first time in seven quarters. Earnings per share of $1.22 beat our expectations and represented a 4% decline from the second quarter of 2023.

Now looking-forward, the market environment continues to be challenging, but we are seeing early signs of recovery. However, as we announced in our press release, this market recovery is not at the pace we anticipated when we provided guidance earlier in the year. As a result, we are reducing our market growth expectations and revising our full-year core revenue to be in the range of $6.42 billion to $6.5 billion and growth to decline between 4.3% and 5.4%.

We now expect earnings per share to be between $5.15 and $5.25 for the year. We have responded quickly to the lower market growth expectations and are taking difficult, but necessary actions to streamline our cost structure. These actions will allow us to invest in our most promising growth opportunities, while also delivering incremental annualized savings of $100 million by the end of the fiscal year.

We are sharpening our focus on key growth vectors such as biopharma, PFAS and advanced materials, while also investing in our digital ecosystem and accelerating our innovation to drive even faster execution. And we are leveraging our strong balance sheet and plan to repurchase $750 million of our common stock across the third and fourth quarters, over and above our normal anti-dilutive repurchases. Bob will provide more details on our results and latest outlook in his remarks.

Getting back to Q2 results, as expected, all end markets saw declining revenue in Q2. Geographically, the Americas and Europe came in slightly ahead of expectations, while China lagged. Despite the challenging market conditions, our Agilent teams stayed close to our customers and continued to leverage our strong relationships with them to execute remarkably well, while maintaining strong cost discipline.

When we look at our performance by business units, the Life Sciences and Applied Markets group reported $754 million in revenue, down 13%. The group saw a decline across all end markets and regions, with Consumables being a bright spot.

Consumables grew in the low single digits, driven by Chemical & Advanced Materials, Food & Environmental & Forensics. Also, while relatively small, we continue to see strong growth in our pre owned instrument business. The LSAG team continues to innovate, introducing two new instruments this quarter that extend our Applied Markets leadership.

First, our 7010GC Triple Quadrupole instrument delivers exceptional sensitivity for customers in the Environmental PFAS and Advanced Materials markets, designed for analysis that demand the lowest limits of detection. And second is our 8850GC, a distinguished new member of our market leading GC portfolio. The 8850 is ultra fast in separation and cooldown speeds, with design innovations that enable customers to run tests up to twice as fast as regular benchtop GC and it's smallest high performance benchtop GC on the market. Plus it's sustainable, using up to 30% less electricity power compared with a traditional benchtop GC.

Now moving on to the Agilent CrossLab group, which delivered revenue of $402 million for the quarter, up 5%. ACG grew across all end markets in every region except China. The business delivered double digit growth in services contracts, which now represent almost 70% of the total business, offset by declines in new instrument installation revenues. The ongoing strength in our contracted business speaks to our strategy of increasing the connect rates on our instruments and the ongoing value we are providing to our customers.

The Diagnostics and Genomics group posted $417 million in revenue, representing an 8% decline. Pathology was up mid single digits globally and was more than offset by declines in the mid 20s in cell analysis due to the constrained capital environment for instrumentation. NASD declined low teens as expected, driven by more clinical products being produced this year versus Q2 of last year. Europe was a bright spot for DGG, growing low single digits in the quarter, while Americas and China declined.

Despite this subdued market environment, we continue to innovate in our cell analysis business. We recently introduced the Agilent Spectral Flow Cytometer, which allows our customers perform sophisticated experiments that expand the range of the research on the same easy to use NovoCyte platform.

Bob will now provide details on our results, as well as our outlook for the remainder of the year. After Bob delivers his comments, I will be back for some closing remarks. Over to you Bob.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Thanks, Padraig and good afternoon everyone. In my remarks today, I will provide some additional details on revenue in the quarter, as well as take you through the income statement and other key financial metrics. I'll then cover our updated full year and third quarter guidance. Q2 revenue was $1.573 billion, a decline of 7.4% core. On a reported basis, currency had a negative impact of 0.8 percentage points, while M&A had a negative impact of 0.2%, resulting in a reported decline of 8.4%. As Padraig mentioned, pharma, our largest end market, declined 11%, with both biopharma and small molecule declining roughly the same percentage.

Instrument demand continues to be constrained, while services delivered mid single digit growth. Looking-forward, while we have seen sentiment improve, instrument purchases are still constrained and we are expecting that to continue for the rest of the year. In addition, we have reduced our expectations for NASD as several clinical programs have pushed out into next year and some commercial products have not ramped at the pace as expected.

As a result, we have reduced our full-year growth outlook for the pharma end market from roughly flat to down low double digits, similar to our Q2 performance. Our revised expectation for the pharma end market is the largest change in our outlook. The Chemical and Advanced Materials market was better than expected, declining 3% after coming off a very tough comparison of 16% growth last year. The Academia and government market declined 12% against the tough compare of a 11% growth last year, while soft globally, the decline was driven by China, which was down mid 30s.

Our business in the Diagnostics and Clinical market declined 2%. Our pathology business continues to show resilience in this market, growing mid-single digits, while our NGS QC instrumentation business also grew slightly. These were offset by softness in our NGS Chemistries business. The Environmental & Forensics market declined 2%. The business grew mid single digits ex-China, highlighted by continued strength in serving the rapidly expanding PFAS opportunity. The food market declined 13% on a very tough compare of 21% growth last year, heavily impacted by the low thirties decline in China.

On a geographic basis, all regions declined. The Americas region was down 5%, Europe was down 3%, while Asia Pacific ex-China was down slightly. China was down 21% missing our expectations of a mid teens decline. We saw demand weakness expand beyond pharma. As a result, we have revised our full year expectations for China from a mid single digit decline to a double digit decline.

We have seen funnel activity increase because of the recently announced stimulus program, but we are not assuming any revenue impact in our fiscal year. Moving down the P&L, our second quarter gross margin was 55.6%, up 30 basis points from a year ago, as productivity and cost savings were offset by lower demand and mix. Our operating margin of 25.1% was down year-over-year as expected. Below the line, we benefited from greater than expected interest income and a lower tax rate. Our tax rate was 12.5% and we had $293 million diluted shares outstanding. Putting it all together Q2 earnings per share were $1.22, down 4% from a year ago, less than a decline in revenue and ahead of our expectations.

Now let me turn to cash flow in the balance sheet. Operating cash flow was $333 million in the quarter and we invested $103 million in capital expenditures, as we continue our planned NASD expansion. We returned $299 million to shareholders in the quarter, $69 million through dividends and $230 million through repurchased shares, catching up on our anti dilutive buying year-to-date. In summary, we met our expectations for the quarter and our markets are recovering, but at a slower pace than we anticipated. We are directing our energy towards high growth opportunities and are committed to delivering value to our customers and our shareholders.

Now on to our revised outlook for the year and our third quarter guidance. We now expect full year revenue to be in the range of $6.42 billion to $6.50 billion. This represents a decline of 6.0% to 4.9% on a reported basis and a decline of 5.4% to 4.3% on a core basis. Currency and M&A combined are a headwind of 60 basis points. This is a $300 million reduction at the midpoint and is primarily related to changes in two areas, China overall and the pharma end market outside of China. For China, we have reduced our expectations to a double digit decline from mid single digits with all end markets being reduced.

This represents roughly $70 million of the guidance reduction. The remainder of the change in the pharma end market globally outside of China is due to two factors. The first and largest factor is continued caution in budget releases and extended approval times for instrumentation purchases in both small and large molecule. This is roughly $175 million of the change. The second factor is related to NASD due to the reasons I mentioned earlier and represents the remaining $55 million reduction. While down from our previous guidance, we are expecting growth in the second half of the year to be roughly 400 basis points better than the first half of the year and plan to exit the year roughly flat year-on-year at the midpoint of the new guidance.

Full-year non-GAAP earnings per share are now expected to be between $5.15 and $5.25, representing a decline of 5.3% to 3.5%. This incorporates a roughly $35 million expense reduction due to the actions Padraig mentioned, the majority hitting Q4 in order to help mitigate the bottom line impact of the change to our revenue guidance. It also assumes a 13% tax rate and 292 million fully diluted shares outstanding.

We will leverage our strong balance sheet and plan to repurchase $750 million of our shares in the second half of the year, in addition to our anti dilutive repurchases. We expect these repurchases to be weighted towards Q3. All told, we expect to return roughly $1.4 billion to shareholders this year between dividends and share repurchases. In addition, the board authorized a new $2 billion share repurchase program that will go into effect August 1st and replace the existing authorization.

Now for our Q3 guidance. We expect revenue will be in the range of $1.535 billion to $1.575 billion. This represents a decline of 8.2% to 5.8% on a reported basis and a decline of 6.9% to 4.5% on a core basis. Currency and M&A combined were a headwind of 130 basis points. Third quarter non-GAAP earnings per share are expected to be between $1.25 and $1.28, representing a decline of 12.6% to 10.5%. Looking forward, we remain disciplined. We're focusing on what we can control and driving strong execution in a challenging market and we are optimistic about the long-term future.

Now back to Padraig.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

When I joined you last quarter as CEO elect, I said Agilent has a compelling story to tell and I was excited by the possibilities that lie before us, as we help our customers bring great science to life. That excitement has only grown. I spent 26 years at Agilent, first starting as a field employee, before moving to sales and then leading some of our businesses. I know Agilent's strength and its opportunities very well. We are in great long-term growth markets and while the markets are recovering slower than anticipated, they are recovering. This company is a leader across key platforms, making us uniquely qualified to support our customers in their missions to solve some of the world's most important problems. And our customers value their relationships with us because we offer them an unparalleled experience. And as I said earlier, that is a competitive differentiator in the market. The actions we are now taking, while difficult, will enable us to quickly capitalize and grow opportunities as the markets fully recover.

I know the future is bright and we will forge an enduring company that sets the standard for excellence with our customers and create value for our shareholders. Thank you again for joining today's call. I look forward to continued dialogue with all of you.

Parmeet, over to you for Q&A.

Parmeet Ahuja
Investor Relations at Agilent Technologies

Thanks, Padraig. Regina, if you could please provide instructions for the Q&A now.

Skip to Participants
Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Matt Sykes with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Matt Sykes
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just the first one is more of a timing question on China, I mean, we've been through a lot of quarterly results this season and the stabilization theme in China has been pretty consistent and you guys have talked about sequential stabilization over the last number of quarters. So was this really an April impact you saw in China and if so, what was sort of the steep deceleration that you saw there and what were some of the causes of it?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Thanks, Matt. I think while Q2 was relatively soft to guidance, we adjusted the H2 outlook. What we're seeing in China is we saw a stability over a number of quarters. What we really believe is that this is not a material deterioration from that, but what we've seen is that we've seen the stimulus have some effect and the stimulus has been a much larger than previous stimulus. It's over multi years. And of course customers are looking about what is the components of that and they're looking at some of the areas in where it's going to help them. So that has had a material effect. We don't see the stimulus having an impact in H2, but we do think it's going to have an impact in 2025.

I think there's a kind of a direct and indirect side of the stimulus. I think on the direct side you see this delay, which is normal, but you see also the indirect side where the government is investing in technology and sciences going forward, which creates a lot of, I would say, future momentum.

Matt Sykes
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

Got it. Thanks for that, Padraig. And then just for my follow-up, you guys have often talked about sort of 18 to 24 month down cycle in the LC replacement cycle. And I'm just wondering, just given some of the comments you made around biopharma, given us an important customer segment for that, have you kind of changed those views in terms of what the LC replacement cycle will look like and what the potential recovery in the replacement cycle will look like? I think some were thinking sort of towards the end of this year, but is this more now into 2025? Is that replacement cycle been extended in terms of recovery?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, we don't -- we don't see any material change, but, Bob, I don't know if you want to add some color on that?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I think, Matt, as you're saying, we're still expecting improvement in the back half of this year, just not at the pace that we had expected. And so we're not seeing any material extension of kind of the use case for LC or an LC/MS in the marketplace and are still expecting recovery in 2025.

Matt Sykes
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question will from the line of Jack Meehan with Nephron Research. Please go ahead.

Jack Meehan
Analyst at Nephron Research

Thank you. Good afternoon, guys. I was wondering if you could share, what's the new sales outlook for NASD this year? And can you talk about, like, bridging from kind of the second half to some of the longer-term targets you had previously like, what are you assuming in terms of kind of progression after this year?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I mean, the NASD business, you know, we talked before about the business being about 50% commercial and 50% clinical. That's changed a bit to be more like 75% clinical and 25% commercial. We've seen the IRA, Inflation Reduction Act having an impact on the price provisioning. So what you see with pharma partners, they're looking for larger indications instead of smaller indications. So what we've seen is, I would call it an air pocket in Q3 and our clinical business is actually growing -- orders are growing about 50%. So we have a good order book on that side. So it's a readjustment and we see that readjustment go through H2 and beyond.

I don't know if you want to add anything to that, Bob?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I think, Jack, to add some numbers to what Padraig was saying here, originally we were expecting it to be roughly flat, which would have said roughly a $350 million business. We're now saying roughly $300 million this year. As Padraig is mentioning, we're expecting to build back from there as these clinical programs move through the clinical pathway and are expecting to have more volume in 2025. And I would say our long-term perspective on NASD remains unchanged. We're still very excited about that opportunity and are still building out the capacity in our Colorado site.

Jack Meehan
Analyst at Nephron Research

Okay.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

And I think the second question, I think the second part of the question was about 2025.

Jack Meehan
Analyst at Nephron Research

Yep.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

We'll grow next year and as you can see in our guidance that we really are anticipating improving conditions across the second half. But it's too early to talk about specific ranges for next year. We want to wait to see how pacing and improvement plans out in the second half.

Jack Meehan
Analyst at Nephron Research

Okay, thank you. And then on the cost savings program, I think I heard talk about $100 million. I just wanted to clarify, is that incremental to the $175 million you previously talked about? And where are those, you know, any color on where the savings is coming from? Thank you.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, it is incremental to the savings that we've already built into the plan and we're expecting to get that annualized savings by the end of the year. It's primarily headcount related, Jack.

Jack Meehan
Analyst at Nephron Research

Okay, thank you, Bob.

Operator

Our next question come from the line of Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Please go ahead.

Patrick Donnelly
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe one on the instrument side, I guess it would be China and just broadly, I know a few quarters ago you guys felt like orders were picking up, the funnel looked okay, but it was really that, I think, Bob, you said it was the velocity of conversion of those orders and that funnel to revenue. Is that what you're seeing is just that continues to stretch out the visibility into that normalizing, it's just proving to be a little trickier. Yeah, I just want to talk through, I guess, that instrument piece, because again, you sound okay on the orders and the funnel and the conversation, but that converting over to revs, I guess I just want to talk through again that conversion piece and the velocity of the conversion.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, no, I think at an Agilent level, as we talk about our book-to-bill was greater than 1, which is a positive sign and where orders grew year-over-year. On the instrument side, the orders grew low single digits, excluding China, but declined low single digits overall. So what we're really seeing is that our funnel is really stable, but we're seeing those extended purchasing decisions being continuing to extend out through the second half.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I think, Patrick, to build on what Padraig is saying, at the beginning of the year, we were expecting -- when we were talking primarily to our pharma customers, you know, budgets weren't being materially cut outside of a specific number of well publicized customers. And we were expecting to see by that our second quarter, some of these budgets being released. And what we're seeing now is still a very cautious environment. And so the funnel is still there. We are seeing, you know, our book-to-bill, is Padraig mentioned to be greater than one. We just haven't seen that inflection, which we would have expected to see, at least in our order book. You know, one of the things that we do see and it primarily happened late in the quarter, is, you know, our teams are paid on first half versus second half quota. And so our April numbers are usually quite large, which prepares us for the -- for Q3 and we just didn't see that inflection in late April, which we normally would see.

Patrick Donnelly
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Okay, that's helpful. Color. And then maybe to follow-up on Jack's question on NASD there. Understand the revenue change. How are you guys thinking about the capital investment on that front? Obviously, it's been sizable in the past years. You've often talked about the continued expansions of the trains. How do you think about the capex devoted to this over the next few years? Has there been any change in terms of push out of that capital or how you're thinking about the potential investment in the expansion on this front, just given the shifting revenue here? Thank you, guys.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, no, absolutely not. I think, despite some near-term headwinds that we have, the medium long-term story for NSADs really holds firm. And as I said before, we're seeing our clinical business grow more than 50% this year and we really remain excited about the expansion of customers and getting back to the therapeutic class that were involved in with siRNAs drugs, we're seeing those approvals for drugs increase substantially in 2023 and being an integral part of the manufacturer of several of these on market therapeutics. The future is extremely bright in this area. So no change in our capital investment.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Hey, Patrick, just one other thing to add on to that is, I'm sure you're aware, as part of that expansion, not only are we expanding capacity, we're also expanding our therapeutic option. So not only siRNA, but also antisense and then also CRISPR opportunities. So it also provides us with more capabilities to support our existing and new client base.

Patrick Donnelly
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Got it. Thank you, guys.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Vijay Kumar
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I guess Padraig or Bob. Thanks for laying out the changes in the guidance assumptions here. I think part of it was China, part of it was NASD, more than half I think it's coming from pharma cautiousness, that's outside of China, ex NASD, which I think that's for the market I thought we were expecting stabilization. Is this a funding environment kind of question or is this elections or what changed because second quarter it feels like revenues were roughly in line. Was it the exit rate? Can you just talk about what the exit rate trends were and what customers are telling you?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I mean, on the pharma instrumentation side, in terms of guidance, we see an impact of about $175 million. And it really is simply pharma's willingness to spend on capital equipment remains challenged over time. And again, customers are focusing on lab efficiency and productivity. But based on what we're hearing from customers, these trends will continue to impact the second half and that's why we're lowering our expectations around that instrument piece. What I will say that the funnels are holding very strong. The conversations are very robust with customers. So we do expect it to improve going into next year.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Hey, Vijay, to build on what Padraig is saying, the guidance that we're building out right now is based on what we're seeing today. It doesn't assume any meaningful inflection. That certainly I'd characterize this as a prudent guide, given what we know today, certainly we're not assuming any of that inflection. You bring up a number of variables which are hard to quantify around the upcoming election and so forth, but we don't think it's a funding issue. We do feel like we are seeing biotech funding coming up, obviously, on the small molecule side, those are -- they are well capitalized companies. It's just a very, it's still cautious in terms of them getting through their approval processes.

Vijay Kumar
Analyst at Evercore ISI

And just maybe related to that, Padraig and Bob, I think, is this just a few handful of customers or is this across the board? Because obviously the next question is, is this a share loss or is this more from? What gives you the confidence that this is just a push out and not a share shift. On the savings here cost savings, Bob, that 35 is in Q4. So the expectations that the incremental 65 is for fiscal 2025?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Let me answer the last question first. So that is a cumulative number for the second half of the year. We'll see some of that happen here in Q3 and roughly be at that $100 million run rate in Q4. So roughly about a $25 million run rate. And then we'll get the full incremental 65, you know, obviously next year as we go into the -- into the business.

Do you want to comment?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, yeah. No, look, when we look across our pharma customers, you know, we see generally it's across the board. We do have some customers that are a little bit more positive than negative this year. But overall, I would say it's a market area, market, market effect. What I would say on the other question, this is definitely a macro story, not a market share story. And in fact, when we look at our objective market share data, we're holding or even gaining in some areas. And I will remind you not to comment on our peers in this area, but we have a month ahead in what we're seeing on it. But we're seeing very robust market share numbers coming in.

Vijay Kumar
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Understood. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Dan Brennan with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Dan Brennan
Analyst at TD Cowen

Great. Thanks. Thanks for the questions. Maybe the first one is on China, you talked about in response to an earlier question about the stimulus is delaying demand this year. Could you just speak through that a little bit? What's your visibility on that? Any way to get a sense of how much of the weight you should be seeing in China's customers, waiting to see the final details of the stimulus? And I know you also alluded to like this could be a big impact in 2025. Can you just speak through that a little bit?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Look, I think having worked with China for many years, it's a multi year program as opposed to the last one, which I think was a year program in the shorter-term. So it's very encouraging to see it. We've seen some proposal from customers, but they're still quite frankly, trying to work out what are the mechanisms for the funding as we go forward. So, we're seeing a lot of activity around that. And I would say, in terms of the confidence boost, we do really see that in 2025, we're going to get some benefit from this, but really too early to tell on us. So we're taking down our guidance in the second half primarily related to this.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Hey, Dan, this is Bob. To build on that, I mentioned in our prepared remarks that bid activity has actually improved. And so we're seeing a number of proposals working with our customers to actually, get a piece of the stimulus. What's not yet clear is the timing of the release of that budget, comes from the provincial or from the state down to the provincial and then to the local governments. And so we've taken a what I would say as a conservative approach to assuming none of that stimulus money will actually -- we'll see any of that in the second half of the year. But it will come, it will come. And so if it comes earlier, that would be a benefit to what we're forecasting right now. But what we did see, particularly in April is a little slowing down of normal bid process, waiting to get access to that money. And so we think that that's just a transitory change, not a structural change.

Dan Brennan
Analyst at TD Cowen

Got it. Thanks. And then maybe just one more on pharma, if you don't mind. So, the instrument growth was so powerful for yourselves and some of your peers coming out of COVID. Is there any chance like the slowdown you're seeing now maybe just a miscalculation? Maybe there was such instrument demand and purchases done in the last couple of years that customers are just kind of working through that, all those purchases versus like an exceptional slowdown right now, given the macro. Just maybe speak a little bit to that if you could, about the overhang for maybe the strength in the past couple of years versus what you're seeing real time now?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, no doubt about it. We've -- tremendous growth rates during the post COVID period, but we don't see anything fundamentally changing with the cycle on instruments, replacement cycles. We don't see it's a kind of a rundown of available instruments or anything like that, because lab activity is very, very high, we see that across the board. We actually see activity on the sales side, but also in support side, very, very high. So we think it's primarily, actually on the macro situation.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah and Dan, just to kind of build on what Padraig is saying, if we looked at ACG and our CSD or our consumables business outside of China, both of those grew mid to high single digits in the quarter. So it does speak to lab activity. They're not having instruments just sitting idle. And in ACG, our contracted services business continues to perform extraordinarily well, up double digits. So the demand is there outside of China right now.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Rachel Vatnsdal with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Rachel Vatnsdal
Analyst at JP Morgan Cazenove

Perfect. Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So, first up, I just wanted to ask on China, we've seen some of the headlines on BIOSECURE act. So I was wondering if you could break down your exposure to large CDMOs in the region and if that contributed to any of the weakness there, just given we've seen some of the commentary from an RFP standpoint. And then just on China stimulus and some of the dynamics there, how should we think about local competition competing for some of these dollars on the stimulus dynamic? And you talked about some of these proposals that you're working on. So can you detail what sectors, what types of customers are you really seeing that proposal work be done right now? Thanks.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, look, I think on the BIOSECURE act, we see normal, you know, people are looking at their supply chains and you know, that's a positives and negatives around the globe as you see that. One of the areas that we've seen from that is actually we see a benefit on our service business as we relocate laboratories in some cases and get them up and running quickly with our services on that one. So definitely some exposure to CDMO, but I would say not the overall macro side on it.

And then I think the second part, Bob, I don't know if you want to take that one?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I would say just building on that, on that point on our questions around CDMO. You know, most of our business in China is local, so it's not multinational and so wouldn't necessarily fall under the BIOSECURE act. There are certain large companies that are on that list that are customers of ours, but that is, that business has been pretty muted for a while and that's not the cause of the incremental weakness here. I would say on the bid activity, it's across the board. It's not in one region of the country or one end market or customers. And obviously, Chinese local competitors are going to be buying for that business like we are. But I think we've shown time and time again our ability to provide very strong and robust instrumentation coupled with very, very good service.

And so I don't think that we're in any disadvantage from a local perspective from that standpoint.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

In fact, Bob, I would say our scale and service there really makes it a differentiator where we can scale with customers and get them up and running very, very quickly. We take the competition very seriously, but we've always had competition in China and we'll continue to keep a focus on that.

Rachel Vatnsdal
Analyst at JP Morgan Cazenove

Great. And then for my follow-up, just given some of the moving pieces on this fiscal 3Q guide, could you walk us through your expectations by segment for 3Q?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Sure, I'll take that real quick. By business group, we're expecting LSAG to be down double digits, DGG down mid single and ACG growing at mid single digits. If we looked at by end market pharma, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, would be down very similar to Q2, so down low double digits. And with Academia and diagnostics markets being roughly flat, Chemical and Advanced Materials being very similar to Q3 or Q2's results. And then food being down roughly the same, maybe a little better than where we saw Q2 as well and then environmental as forensics similar performance as Q2.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Doug Schenkel with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Doug Schenkel
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Hey, guys. I want to start by, I guess I have two high level, but I think important questions. One is, simply put, I want to get your thoughts as we sit here today about the company's long-term growth outlook and essentially to what top line growth rate are you managing the business as you think about the next few years? In pharma and biotech, you have less exposure as a percentage of sales to some of the higher growth areas of that end market and the outlook for one of your higher growth areas, NASD, within biopharma certainly in question amongst investors, given how things have been going recently. And while there's hope that China stimulus will help across many end markets, as we kind of think past that ultimately many believe the durable growth rate in China, where you're overexposed will be materially lower than what we've seen in years past. And then as we think of other discrete differentiating growth drivers for the company, when we look at CrossLabs and DGG, the growth rates have moderated there in part because of the market, but also in part because you did have above average concentration with once high growth diagnostic companies as an example. So, there's a lot of bad guys here right now, obviously, in the long-term, there's a lot of belief in Agilent and how you run the business. But I think there are a lot of questions when you kind of pull all this together about what is the inherent growth rate of this business. Can you share any thoughts on that?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Maybe I'll kick it off of a bit at a high level. I think, first of all, we participate in excellent markets with multiple long-term growth drivers. You look at the characterization that's going to be needed in biotherapeutics and time improving human health, quality of our food is really going to be a continued growth driver for the company. I would say there's a lot of growth factors within the business that in adjacent markets where we continue to invest in those opportunities. You've seen parts of biopharma, PFAS and I do believe in NASD long-term is going to continue to grow. On our service business, we expect that to grow high single digits over the long-term as we increase our attach rate, which is not a small point because every percentage increase in attach rate is about $30 million incremental on that side. So overall, I think we're in -- we're in extremely durable long-term markets.

On the China story, we're going to see probably getting down to more mature level growth rates in China. But I would remind everybody that there is secular drivers in China that continue to come up and government continues to invest in science and technology, but also the scale of the country being so large. We benefit tremendously from the aftermarket element, consumables and service around that and been able to kind of drive attachment to some of the emerging workflows.

But Bob, I don't know if you have anything to add on that?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I would just say, as we think about kind of our long-term algorithm that we've been talking about, that 5% to 7%, we're not ready to walk away from that. I think we still feel good about that and I think while you talked about some of the bad guys, we still believe in biopharma and are continuing to invest there. In addition, Padraig mentioned a few things in the applied side where we are the undisputed leader. So things like PFAS, the electrification, semiconductors, those things weren't there five years ago to the extent that they're going to be there in the next five years. So certainly the markets are a bit challenging right now, but we are seeing them recover and we would expect to be able to get back to those rates in the near term.

Doug Schenkel
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Okay, thank you for that. And Bob, maybe sticking with you, if we go back to the beginning of the year, when you set guidance for the fiscal year, I think it's fair to say there were a number of questions from the investment community about how you were setting guidance for the year. Specifically, there was concern about the plausibility of what you assumed for the second half. In hindsight, obviously, these questions and concern to be well founded. What went wrong? Does this tell you something about visibility for the business? If so, is it a transitory issue? And if that's the case, can you help us explain why? And if it's not visibility, what do you need to do in terms of changing your guidance philosophy moving forward?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, thanks, Doug. And I think it is visibility. I think if you looked across the last seven years, the two most volatile years have been the last two. And so I think we were expecting based on the feedback that we got from our customers, that they would be releasing budgets much more quickly than what they have or at least what we're seeing. And while we did have a expectation that we were going to see an inflection in the back half of this year, you know, when we're talking to our customers, it just hasn't happened. And so, you know, I think the visibility is something that I think we will get back, particularly as we have more recurring revenue and continue to have the connect rate onto the services business. And, you know, we're disappointed as everyone else is, but you can rest assured that, we're going to come out of this stronger going forward.

Doug Schenkel
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Dan Leonard with UBS. Please go ahead. Dan, your line might be on mute. Our next question will come from the line of Michael Ryskin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Michael Ryskin
Analyst at Bank of America

Great, thanks. I want to pick things up exactly where you just ended on the last answer with Doug on visibility, so, I mean you kind of talked about how you had a certain set of expectations going into the year based on conversations with customers and didn't play out. I mean, is there any reason to think that visibility is better now? I guess is my question. If we look at the guide change and specifically focusing on pharma with or without NASD, if you want to just talk about pharma, the capex or pharma and NASD, it seems like visibility there is still really, really challenged. So on the one hand, a lot of your prepared remarks are markets are improving, but on the other hand, you're not expecting in 3Q because you just talked about, well, double digits doesn't seem much you're expecting it for the rest of the year. So, just exiting the year, entering next year, how do we know we're not going to be having the same conversation again about another pushout and another pushout? Just talk about that visibility going forward?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I think if we look at just first half, second half and look at where our core guidance is, it's not assuming any inflection in the back half. I mean, you could make an argument to typically we have a higher weighting towards the back half of the year just part of normal seasonality and we're not assuming that in our guide. And so if you look at also pharma, we're assuming it's down roughly the same as it's been in the first half of the year, but we'll get easier compares. And so we're not expecting, "a big inflection in the -- in the back half of the year". I would say also on NASD, which we are assuming a reduction in the second half of the year relative to the first half of the year, we have all those orders in house. And so we've got a plan, a production plan and both for Q3 and Q4. And while something could happen, it's not like we're looking for orders to guide us on those. And those are the two big areas that made the biggest change when I think about where we were back in November, giving guidance to where we are today.

Michael Ryskin
Analyst at Bank of America

Okay. And Bob, since you touched on 3Q, 4Q ramp, I'm going to follow-up on that as well, actually. I mean, you normally do see some seasonality, third quarter, the fourth quarter, depending on the year, depending on the comp, let's call it about $100 million, maybe $100 million plus. You're sort of in that your guide for 3Q and fiscal year implies about $120 million every Q4 this year. So again, not excessive, but still some step up and it seems like 2Q and 3Q certainly are below trend.

So is there any risk to that four Q number? I mean, is there anything else we should be thinking about in terms of what makes that achievable besides just comp and seasonality? Thanks.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, the biggest change there is our NASD business, which we will see a low water point here in Q3. What we ended up seeing is some of these clinical programs getting pushed out. They've got pushed out from Q3 into Q4. And so there's a $30 million incremental step up from Q3 to Q4. So if you took that out, we did get back to a more historical kind of level.

Michael Ryskin
Analyst at Bank of America

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line at Dan Arias with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Dan Arias
Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus

Good evening, guys. Thanks for questions. Bob or Padraig, on the capital equipment portfolio and the order book and the sales funnel that you have there, maybe just in simplistic terms, how would you describe the average time to deal close that it feels like you're going to be working with in the back half of the year versus what you've seen as a historical average. And embedded in that is just this question on instrument demand that you have a line of sight on via the sales funnel, but that just hasn't been booked yet, versus what's not materialized at all yet and then how the outlook change reflects those two things?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, look at it. I think it's hard to put a number on the extended deal time. It depends actually on the platform and portfolio. So there's quite a big difference between, for example, GC and LC/MS on that. But what I would say in general, the deal time is prolonged and the win rates, of course, haven't changed. They're still very, very strong. But that deal time is prolonged. And I think, you know, if you look it in the second half, when we're looking at the visibility of what we're seeing in the phone, the best thing we're doing is staying closer to customers on this one, making sure we're there to help them, of course, with their decisions and help them get up and running when they make the decision to purchase on it. So we're going to see this continued extended deal time, I think, through the end or through the second half.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

And, Dan, you know, I wish I could say we have all the orders in house for the second half for instruments. It just doesn't work that way. So we have much better visibility into Q3, but we will need a continued performance in Q3. Now, we've had several quarters here of book-to-bills being greater than one in our instrumentation portfolio, which is a positive thing I would say, hey, we're building some backlog. And as Padraig mentioned earlier in the call, particularly in LSAG, LSAG orders grew ex China and that is the first time that's happened in several quarters. So we are seeing some positives.

And if you look at the second half of the year, our performance relative to last year should improve just because of the benefit of easier compares. And so we're not again, looking for that huge inflection and we're not expecting, also, as Padraig was saying, a constriction, so to speak or an acceleration of those deal funnels. We're expecting them to stay very similar to where they are right now.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I think and just to close off, Bob, I think the deal closure timelines remain at an elevated, but very stable level. They're not deteriorating further, which I think is a really good sign. And in terms of the funnel, funnel is stable. No cancellations within that, which, of course, is very important to see.

Dan Arias
Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus

Okay. And then maybe on, as a follow-up on biopharma, I'm just curious about the extent to which the IRA is part of the conversation there these days. It sounded like last year the industry kind of contemplated an adjustment as the idea was coming into the picture. So do you think spending expectations got right sized for a period of time? Are you finding that's sort of a continual, evolving conversation? Thanks, Bob.

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I would say it's a continuing, evolving conversation. Clearly, on the NASD side, we've seen an impact from the IRA, something we're watching closely, but I think this will evolve over time. What we're seeing, you know, in terms of programs based around pricing provisions, there's definitely has been an impact on that side.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Josh Waldman with Cleveland Research. Please go ahead.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. A couple for you. Padraig or Bob, I wondered if you could talk a bit more on how instrument orders progress sequentially. I mean, did orders deteriorate over the last 90 days or really just a function of orders not improving as you expected? And then wondered if you could comment on what you're seeing from new orders, new order perspective across the key product categories within LSAG categories, like LC/MS, GC, ICP I guess is it fair to assume LC/MS is driving the majority to softness just given the comments on pharma?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

I don't know if you want to take that one, Bob?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. Yeah, I'll take it. So I wouldn't characterize it, Josh, as a deterioration. It actually just wasn't the inflection or the acceleration that we were expecting. You know, we did, as we were saying here, we did have a positive book-to-bill and ex China orders grew. They just didn't grow to the extent that we expected them to, particularly in April, which we would typically have a higher acceleration, just kind of given the end of the -- end of the quarter. In terms of the platform, what you're seeing is the platforms that are more focused on pharma being the areas that are the weakest. So LC and LC/MS are weaker than the applied markets and you can kind of see that in our end markets as well. And so we were expecting those to kind of perform better this year and we're just still seeing that, I'd say lower than expected performance from the standpoint of order velocity.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

Got it. Okay. Then, a follow-up on China. Wondered if you could comment a bit more...

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Josh, I would say, sorry, just one quick. So one thing I would say, though, is if I looked at the performance, the revenue performance versus the order performance, the order performance was significantly better in Q2 on those two main platforms than the revenue. So again, these are points that says we are getting out of it, maybe not at the pace that we were expecting. So and -- so those are some positive points that would suggest that we're going to continue to -- it's not going to deteriorate coming out in Q2 or excuse me, in second half, sorry.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

What were the two platforms?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

LC and LC/MS. So our -- yep, yep.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

Okay. Okay. Got it, got it. And then a follow up on China. Just wondered if you could comment a bit more on where all you're seeing demand come in softer than expected from a new bookings perspective and then a bit more detail on how you're contemplating the stimulus. I mean, it sounds like you saw improved bidding and funnel activity on the prospects of stimulus, but just wondered if you could provide what's giving you the confidence that that stimulus related funnel ends up converting to orders and sales at some point in the future?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, maybe starting on the stimulus. This is -- it's an extremely large program, multi year program. It's very real. We've seen some of the customers with activities asking us to bid on some of the things even though they're not sure exactly yet how the mechanisms would work. So that gives us great confidence for 2025 just from that. But I said earlier, also the indirect impact of confidence in science and technology in China, it's a real vote of confidence by the government in making sure we -- making sure to get the markets going again.

So I think in Q2, we saw meaningful softness extend to all markets because remember, the stimulus is not only Academia and government, it's across all markets. And that has really come at once. And we did see at the end of the quarter, we also started to see customers postpone purchasing decisions. They've told us, right, so they said we're going to postpone and they try to gauge if there's any benefit of the stimulus related funding and that's normal. I think that's expected. If you didn't see that then the stimulus would have different questions. And why we believe that the stimulus program will ultimately be long-term positive, we really don't see any benefit in H2 and that's why we're roughly reducing by $70 million.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

Got it. Did you see stimulus related postponing in pharma and CDMO as well or more just government accounts?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, it was both government and non-government accounts across the board. So I would say it was pretty broad beyond pharma.

Josh Waldman
Analyst at Cleveland Research

Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Catherine Schulte with Baird. Please go ahead.

Catherine Schulte
Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Hey, guys, thanks for the question. Maybe just sticking on China's stimulus to start off, is there any way to quantify the increase in funnel activity that you've seen there, just as we try to think about potential opportunity in future years?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, what we're seeing is a postponement and I think it's really too early to tell on the funnel side if the customers are still working out the mechanisms about how it works. We're still waiting to see on the impact on the funnel, particularly for 2025. It's too early to tell.

Catherine Schulte
Analyst at Robert W. Baird

Okay. And then on LSAG, what was performance in the quarter, excluding China? And then any commentary on the pharma end market specifically for that business outside of China in the quarter?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Bob, you want to take this one?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. So our LSAG business declined 13% globally, ex-China, it was down 8%.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Paul Knight with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

Hi, thanks for the time. The -- within the 34% of business that's pharma, what portion is biopharma or large molecule, Bob?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

It's 45, roughly 45%.

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

And what's the overall growth rate of that piece you think?

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Long-term or in the quarter?

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

In the quarter and long-term.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah. So if we looked at our biopharma business, it was down roughly 12%, small molecule was down roughly 10%. Total pharma was down 11%. So kind of gives you a sense. I think...

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, I would say before we get onto the long-term, Bob, for biopharma, really tough compare was mid teens plus mid teens last year on that side. But what we're seeing is the long-term prospects for this market is very strong.

Robert McMahon
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yep.

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

Yeah. And then I know that you've got, you have always been very aggressive and innovative on your M&A for biologics. Are you seeing that market open up on the M&A side of that marketplace?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

You mean in the space itself?

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

Is pricing becoming more realistic as you think about your acquisition strategy?

Padraig McDonnell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Agilent Technologies

Yeah, well, I think there's long memories, you know, so people don't forget the elevated price -- pricing for assets. But we're going to remain very disciplined. You know, it's going to become an increasingly bigger part of the puzzle for us M&A, but we're going to make sure that we do it in a very disciplined way linked to strategy. And, of course, looking at areas where we can -- we can double down in growth factors. So we're very focused on that going forward. But I would say while pricing maybe has come down in little areas across the board, people have long memories.

Paul Knight
Analyst at KeyBanc

Okay, thank you.

Operator

I will now turn the call back over to Parmeet Ahuja for closing remarks.

Parmeet Ahuja
Investor Relations at Agilent Technologies

Thanks, Regina and thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. With that, we would like to end the call. Have a good rest of the day, everyone.[Operator Closing Remarks]

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Corporate Executives
  • Parmeet Ahuja
    Investor Relations
  • Padraig McDonnell
    President and Chief Executive Officer
  • Robert McMahon
    Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Analysts

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